The Zimventures 9: SG-ZIM
by tusitalabruni
Summary: Average schlub Cris Zim has been cast out of his roommate's apartment. His parents turned him away. He lost his job at the box company. Now he is lost in the woods of Colorado where he is found by the military and recruited for SG-1's Red Shirt project. Naturally, he screws even this up. This is the biggest Zimventure yet!
1. Prologue

THE ZIMVENTURES

SG-ZIM

PROLOGUE

It had been a bad month for Cris Zim. All that time, and he thought Fitz had been kidding. There was no way his roommate would ever give up that awesome apartment just to move back in with his folks. The idea was just preposterous. But when the deadline finally arrived Zim learned the awful truth to this plan. In the blink of an eye he found himself out on his ass. He took comfort in the fact that he didn't have many belongings. Fitz bought most of everything for the place, so Zim was able to fit everything he owned into his car.

At first Zim drove back to his parents' place, thinking that he'd follow Fitz's example. Sure, his own father had said that he would never let Zim move back in, but they were his parents. This was his home. Family couldn't turn you away, right?

Zim's father flat-out refused to so much as let him in the door. With a tremendous sigh, Zim drove away.

He tried to make a go of living in his car, but after a while the box company made it clear in no uncertain terms that he is not to sleep in their parking lot. Every time he parked somewhere for the night, the cops would come by and hassle him. There was just no way for him to continue living like this.

He thought he might drive down to Florida to live with Geoff, but then he remembered how repulsive and foolish and undependable his brother was. Besides, he didn't think he could get enough gas money for the trip.

So he sold everything he owned except for his clothes and toiletries, picked up his last paycheck and decided to go in the opposite direction. He would drive his car until he ran out of gas, then start hiking in his attempt to see America. If push came to shove, he'd panhandle. He'd heard many stories from Bruni about his ex-girlfriend, and he knew that living on the streets wouldn't be too hard.

He made it to the wilderness of Colorado before he ran out of gas. He tried selling his car to anyone who would stop by, but no one went for it. With a sigh he shouldered his backpack of belongings and left his car behind.

Bad move. Before long he found himself lost in the woods. He'd left the road so he could take a shit, but when he tried to find his way back, he just couldn't. So he started wandering around, and before he knew it he was climbing a mountain. He cursed Fitz's name under his breath, as he still blamed all of his misfortunes on his former roommate.

After days of living in the chilly, rainy climate with no shelter and only a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos for food, he came to a clearing, bearded and smelly from days without a proper bathroom. Above, he heard a thwopping sound, and when he looked up he saw a helicopter hovering above him. Rope dropped, and someone rappelled down.

Zim wondered if maybe he should get the fuck out of here, but curiosity got the better of him. Besides, what if this guy wanted to rescue him and give him free food?

The man released the rope and took of his hat. "Cris Zim?"

"Call me Cris," Zim said.

"I'm Major Davis, Zim. We've never met, but I know a lot about you."

Fuck. Why couldn't anyone ever call him Cris? He blamed Fitz, as usual.

"The United States government has been watching you—and others like you—for a long time."

"There's no one else like me."

"Losers," Davis clarified. "And it seems like you've never been more of a loser than you are now. Homeless, without a car and job, with no belongings aside from what you carry on your back."

"Yeah, that kind of sucks," Zim said.

"We've actually got a job for you. How would you like to be a Red Shirt?"

"I don't like red," Zim said. "And I don't think I'd like being a shirt."

Davis laughed, but Zim didn't so much as chuckle. The laughter faded out. "You'll be doing the US Air Force a very good service."

"I'm not that much into the military. I like to take naps. A lot."

"You'd be perfect for this job. Besides, you'll get room and board and an outstanding paycheck."

"How outstanding?"

"Would you like to make a hundred thousand dollars a year?"

Dollar signs cha-chinged in Zim's eyes. "Uh . . . sure."

"It's dangerous work, but considering how you really have no life, you've got nothing to lose."

"Dangerous?"

"Well, it's easy for Red Shirt recruits to get killed. It's their job to get shot at and absorb casualties so our main field operatives don't get killed."

"But the money's good," Zim said. "And you guys are gonna put me up, right?"

"Right."

"Fuck it. I'll take the job. It could be fun."

Davis grinned. "I knew I could count on you, Zim. Let's climb this rope, and I'll tell you all about Project Stargate." He put his hat back on and grabbed the rope.

Zim looked up and didn't feel very good about climbing all that distance. It looked downright physically demanding. He almost considered changing his mind about this job, but after seeing how easily Davis made it up, he thought he could do it . . .


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

MEET SG-1

It was a lot harder than it looked. Zim maybe climbed three feet before he became so exhausted he couldn't continue. This was because he spent so much time making his muscles look pretty, but very little on actually making them useful.

Davis looked down and noticed that Zim was having trouble. With a sigh, he pulled the rope up into the chopper and gave Zim a hand up. "Wow. You really are useless, aren't you?"

"I'm useful enough for a hundred grand a year," Zim said.

"Yeah, you're going to be REALLY useful."

They floated over the Colorado wilderness until they came to a mountain. It looked like a military operation below, what with the Jeeps and MPs and all. "Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain, home of NORAD."

"What's that?" Zim asked.

Davis ignored him. "It is also the home of Project Stargate, several miles below the surface."

"Sounds pretty secret."

"The biggest in the world." Davis turned to the pilot. "Take us down!"

When they landed, Zim was taken to a security checkpoint where they already had ID clearance codes waiting for him. "That was quick. I feel so important."

"We do things as swiftly and efficiently as possible around here," Davis said. "It's time for you to meet your partner. You two will always be watching each other's backs. At least for as long as the two of you survive."

They took an elevator down so many floors that Zim's ears popped. He stuck a finger in one and wiggled around a bit. Nothing. He tried swallowing, but again: nothing. When they reached the bottom, he found himself confronted by a familiar face.

"Rico!" Zim said. "For a second I didn't recognize you. Usually you have puke all over your shirt."

"Ah, Zim," Rico said. "Bruni's lover. How's it going?"

"Life sucks. Got a minute?"

"I got a bunch of minutes, but I'm not giving them to the likes of you."

Davis said, "Zim, meet your partner. Rico, you already know Zim."

"But not in the Biblical sense," Rico said.

"Come down to the briefing room. You're going to meet your SG team, and you'll be told all about Project Stargate."

"Briefing?" Zim asked.

Davis led the two of them into a room with a long table. Sitting at the head was a portly bald man in a white shirt. The other four sat around the table, wearing military green. One of them was a large black man with a weird golden tattoo on his forehead, and another was a woman with short blonde hair. The other two didn't look very remarkable. One was pretty well built and wore glasses, and the other was skinny with a head of gray hair.

"Meet SG-1," Davis said. "SG-1, these are your Red Shirts."

"Fer cryin' out loud," the gray-haired one said. "We don't need no stinking Red Shirts. The team is good enough as it is."

"Colonel O'Neill," the white shirted man said. "SG-1 comes under a lot of fire. It would help to have a few extra bodies around to absorb casualties. And who knows? Maybe the next alien possession, ascension or disease will happen to them instead of important members of the team."

"I find the idea of a Red Shirt morally reprehensible," the one with the glasses said. "If we need new members for SG teams, why not recruit them from the Air Force, like we usually do?"

"I agree with Daniel," the woman said. "Who's to say that these Red Shirts don't have friends and family who care about them?"

"They were selected specifically because they have no lives and no loved ones," the white shirt said. "They're losers with nothing going for them in life."

"Hey, I resemble that remark," Rico said.

Davis nudged him with his shoulder. "You are now employed by the United States. General Hammond is a superior officer. You need to salute him and keep your mouth shut when he's talking."

Rico shrugged. "No need to bite my head off."

"See?" O'Neill said. "This isn't going to work. They have no reason to respect your authorata if they expect to die with each mission."

"In case you've forgotten, Colonel," Hammond said, "this is not my brain child. The order comes down from the president himself."

"This has Kinsey written all over it," O'Neill said.

"That's enough, Colonel. Zim, Rico, welcome to SG-1."

"Oh!" Rico said. "SG stands for Stargate! I get it now."

"Jesus Christ!" Zim said. "Even I got that!"

"Is it possible just to kill 'em here, General?" O'Neill asked. "Just to save the trouble later."

Hammond ignored him. "Have a seat, gentlemen. You're about to learn America's biggest secret."


	3. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

OPEN THE IRIS

The blonde woman, now identified as Major Carter, said, "There is a network of wormhole generators all across the galaxy. These devices are known as Stargates. We discovered ours in the early half of the Twentieth Century in Egypt, but it wasn't until recently when we discovered how to make it work. We can dial out to another planet, make the connection and travel to that destination in a matter of seconds. It's really quite remarkable."

"This sounds kind of familiar," Zim said.

"There are no gods," Daniel Jackson said. "They're actually aliens called the Goa'uld. They use human bodies as hosts, but they are snake-like creatures who live in the humans' stomachs. They came to earth in pre-civilization times and convinced the natives that they were gods."

"This planet?" Rico asked. "Not that hard."

"Right now, our big enemy is Anubis," O'Neill said. "We already took care of the likes of Ra and Apophis. Pretty cool, huh?"

"I enjoy killing villains who believe themselves to be gods," said the guy with the forehead tattoo. He had been introduced as Teal'c. "It is quite liberating."

"Yeah, I play video games, too," Zim said.

"This is way cooler than video games," O'Neill said. "Way awesomer than Contra."

Carter then went on to throw a whole bunch of jargon at Zim and Rico, stuff about Replicators and Asgard (at which point Rico giggled, thinking they meant Ass Guard), and other stuff that sounded far too sciencey for their likes. The only part they understood was how the Air Force used the Stargate to explore other planets and cultures, trying to share resources and form alliances throughout the galaxy.

"And sometimes we find the Goa'uld hanging around," O'Neill said. "Then we get to kick their asses."

"Usually in the face of insurmountable odds," Teal'c said.

"Never tell me the odds," Zim said. When no one laughed, he sighed. "Sorry. Fitz isn't here. I had to say something."

Carter went on to discuss other things, like something called the Prometheus. A sudden realization occurred to Rico when he realized they were talking about a spaceship. "Why didn't you call it the Enterprise? Makes sense."

O'Neill slapped the table. "That's exactly what I said. No one ever listens to me."

"Wait a minute," Zim said. "I remember where I heard all this crap before. Wormhole Xtreme. My old roommate, Fitz, he loved that show. Watched it all the time."

"We know all about that," Hammond said.

"Long story," O'Neill said.

Carter opened her mouth to continue when an overhead alarm went off. Everyone at the table jumped to their feet and rushed away. Zim and Rico looked at Davis.

"You're on the team now," Davis said. "Follow them."

Zim and Rico shuffled after the rest of SG-1. Davis said, "Faster. This is an emergency."

Zim let out a tremendous sigh and ran after the team. Rico merely walked faster. They both arrived in a control room at the same time, and everyone seemed to be frantic. Through the window, Zim could see a giant ring that looked like a swimming pool on its side. "Just like on the TV show."

"I hate that show," Rico said.

"You hate everything," Zim said.

"I like some things. Not a lot, though."

"Apparently you like junkie whores," Zim said.

"And you like unconscious women. No one's perfect."

Hammond stepped up to a bald-headed, bespectacled man. "Sergeant, give me a sit-rep."

"It's SG-7, sir. It sounds like they're receiving fire."

"Open the iris."

The sergeant scanned his palm, and the metal disc opened up. When it did, blaster shots came out of it, sparking off the walls. "Close the screen!" Hammond said. A metal door closed around the window. "Send reinforcements into the gate room!"

"That means you guys," Davis said. He pointed to Zim and Rico.

"That sounds dangerous," Zim said.

"That's why you make the big bucks. Grab your weapons and get in the gate room."

"We didn't get our red shirts yet," Rico said.

"It's only a figure of speech. You'll get army greens. If you survive this."

"Grab a P90 and go!" O'Neill yelled.

"What the fuck is a P90?" Zim asked.

"One of these things." Daniel Jackson held up a rifle. "The bullets go in this end." He pointed.

"I like guns," Rico said. "See? There's some stuff I like."

He and Rico grabbed their own weapons and descended into the gate room. Zim was pretty sure he wouldn't die. He was usually the star of these things, so there was no way he'd be killed his first time out. Maybe Rico. Probably Rico.

The gunfire and yelling became louder, and Zim suddenly changed his mind about charging into danger. He looked at Rico, admired his bulk, and thought he would make an excellent shield.


	4. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

CLOSE THE IRIS

Zim turned the corner and rushed into the gate room behind Rico, trying to make himself seem as small as possible. Energy blasts kept flying through the Stargate and singeing the walls around them. Soldiers dropped dead as their faces fried.

Through the Stargate stepped a giant of a man with a tattoo on his forehead similar to Teal'c. He wore heavy metal armor and held a staff in one hand and a dead soldier in the other. As soon as he was through he dumped the corpse and fired his staff. Other similarly garbed men joined him from the Stargate and relentlessly fired upon the reinforcements.

Rico roared like a beast and fired his P90 in a spray. Bullets tinked off the assailants' armor, and several of them dropped dead. Zim decided to stay behind Rico.

More soldiers fell as the attackers flooded the Stargate and continued firing their staff weapons. Rico, without a care in the world, brazenly stepped forward and kept firing, slaughtering the enemy where they stood. Behind Zim, O'Neill yelled into the communicator. "Sir, we've lost SG-7! Close the iris!"

Rico gunned down more of the attackers just as the metal disc slid back into place, cutting a man in half and trapping the others in the gate room. There were several thunks on the other side of the iris as others tried to get through.

From here it was easy to put down the rest of the enemy. Rico and the rest made short work of them, and Zim didn't even fire his gun. The screen over the command booth retreated, and the soldiers cleaned up the bodies.

"Who the hell were those guys?" Zim muttered.

"They were Anubis's Jaffa," O'Neill said. "They have symbiotes living in their bellies. They grow up to become more Goa'uld to plague us."

"I used to have one, myself," Teal'c said. "In order to survive now, I'm on a steady diet of tritonen."

"Well, that's cool." Not that any of that meant anything to Zim. What the hell was a symbiote?

"Never mind that," O'Neill said. He approached Rico. "Look at this guy! I haven't seen shooting like that since before I even heard of the Stargate. You sure you have no training?"

"I've always wanted to kill people," Rico said. "Now that the government's given me permission, I'm a happy guy."

Zim rolled his eyes. He didn't want to hear any more about this, especially since he was supposed to be the star of this show, not Rico. Instead he retreated to the command booth, where the sergeant still stared at the computer screen. There were all sorts of weird symbols there.

"Can I help you?" the sergeant asked.

"Can you get Final Fantasy on this thing?"

The sergeant turned away from his work and stared at Zim. "Uh . . . no."

Hammond entered the room from one end and O'Neill from the other. "That was quick work, Colonel."

"Thank you, sir. We mobilized just in time. It's a shame about SG-7, though. It looks like the Jaffa used their signal to trick us into opening the iris."

"Get Carter on that. See if she can figure out a way to ensure this doesn't happen again."

"You got it. And that new Red Shirt, Rico? He's a hell of a soldier. I think he's going to fit in real well around here."

Hammond grinned. "That's real good, Colonel. Get your Red Shirts situated, and meet me in an hour in the briefing room. We're going to get them started on their first mission."

"I still have my doubts about this one." O'Neill nodded to Zim. "I don't think he even fired his P90 once."

"Rico had it covered," Zim said. Maybe he could build up Rico's reputation and hide in his shadow. It was probably better just to not get noticed around here. Keep his head low, collect a fine paycheck.

"Right. Follow me."

On the way out of the command booth, O'Neill grabbed Rico, and the three of them made their way up a few levels to the living quarters. "You guys are going to be roomies."

"You've got to be kidding me," Zim and Rico said at the same time.

"Have you seen his bathroom at home?" Rico asked. "There's something living on the sink."

"Never mind that," Zim said. "This guy leaves pizza boxes lying around for weeks on end. He doesn't bathe, and—"

"Way to stand in judgment on me," Rico said. "Words hurt."

"Maybe I should use more than words."

"Children!" O'Neill yelled. "Shut up, the both of you! You can argue all you want when I get out of here. Zim, you got that end of the room." He pointed. "Rico, you've got the other. You'll find your uniforms in the dresser drawers. You've been cleared for your first mission. Get dressed and meet us back in the briefing room in an hour. Bring a notebook and pen. You might learn a few things."

"Where's the briefing room?" Zim asked. "Hell, what is a briefing room?"

O'Neill stared at him, his lips pursed together. "The room in which we met. Be there in an hour."

"Do we get the internet in here?" Zim asked. "I like playing Final Fantasy."

"You don't get to play Final Fantasy around here," O'Neill said. "Deal with it."

"How about Netflix?" Rico asked. "I can't live without Netflix."

"I guess you'll have to not live, then," O'Neill said. "Briefing room, one hour. Don't be late."

The colonel got out of there as quickly as he could. Zim turned to Rico. "I think we should draw a line down the center of this room. You can't cross over to my side, and I can't cross over on your side."

"I've always wanted to live in a sitcom," Rico said.

"I like Perfect Strangers."

"This is more of an Odd Couple situation."

Zim grimaced, holding in a groan. "This is gonna suck so much. I should have just gotten an apartment in Lisle."

"I think this is awesome. I just killed a bunch of people. How cool is that? If only Kliff could see me now."

Zim peeked into the dresser and saw that his military greens were waiting for him, along with a pair of combat boots. There was some field armor, as well. A backpack equipped with everything he'd need in the field also awaited him, including an automatic pistol and holster.

"Cool," Rico said. He held up his own gun. "I wanted one just like this when I was in Elk Grove. Too bad I never seemed to have the money for it." He paused. "Ew. Army green? They don't match my eyes."

There was at least a TV, and Zim flipped through the channels. Just the basics. Nothing fancy. There was also a DVD player, which implied that somewhere on base, there was a DVD collection. That was good news. He'd have to ask O'Neill about that.

"I'm taking a shower," Rico said. "It's been about two weeks since I did that."

Zim sniffed at his armpits, nearly floored by what attacked his nostrils. He remembered that he hadn't bathed since his last night at Fitz's place. "That's probably a good idea."

They checked a map on the wall and eventually found the men's locker room. However, just as they stripped down and wrapped towels around their waists, they noticed that the showers weren't separated into booths. SG teams showered prison style.

No one else was there, which gave Zim an idea. "I'm going down to this side of the room."

"I'll stick to the other side, then."

"Good."

"Good."

Zim went to the corner and hung his towel on a nearby hook. He sudsed himself up, keeping his eyes directly on the tile wall. Even when he had to turn around, he stared at the ceiling, not wanting to get an accidental glimpse of Rico. That was be far too gay, and Zim didn't want anyone thinking for a second that there might be something not-straight about his sexuality.

They finished up and toweled off on opposite sides of the locker room. Only when they were dressed in their new uniforms did they acknowledge each other's presence again.

"Think they have any hair product?" Zim asked. "I can't go without fixing my hair."

"They didn't have body wash," Rico said. "I don't think they'll have hair product."

"This sucks."

"Maybe we should get something to eat," Rico said. "Think they have pizza?"

"They might. They should. Let's find out. I haven't had anything to eat except for Flamin' Hot Cheetos in a long time."

Rico looked at his military-issue watch. "The briefing is in ten minutes."

"So what? If they want us so bad, they'll find us."

"I kinda liked killing people. I want to do it again, as soon as possible."

"You're a psycho, Rico," Zim said.

"And you're a rapist."

Zim sighed. Why did Fitz have to tell everyone that I-thought-you-were-sleeping story? "Screw it. I'm getting food."

They were about to leave the locker room when they ran into O'Neill. "Actually, you're not going to get anything to eat right now. We have a super important mission, and you need to be brought up to date."

"Already?" Zim asked. "We almost got killed thirty minutes ago. I need to get something in my belly."

"You'll get a bellyful, all right," O'Neill said. "It's time for your trial by fire. You ready to meet your first Goa'uld?"

"Fuck," Zim said. "This can't be good."


	5. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

BRIEFING

O'Neill escorted them to the briefing room, where the rest of SG-1 sat around the table dressed not in military greens but in black t-shirts. Hammond regarded Zim and Rico with a raised eyebrow. "Those are field uniforms. You should be wearing your casual clothes while around the base."

Zim looked down at his outfit. "That would have been nice knowing before I got dressed."

"Whatevs," Rico said. "Is it okay to carry this gun around? I kind of like having it, and you never know when you'll need it around here. For killing stuff."

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "Just sit down and put your ears on."

Zim frowned. What the fuck did that mean?

Everyone took their seats, and Rico started spinning in his. "Whee!" he said. "This is fun. I should have gotten his job years ago."

Hammond couldn't take it anymore. "Stop acting like a jackass and listen up, son. We've got an important mission to go over, and I won't tolerate your stupidity any further."

Rico stopped spinning, mouth open. "No need to call me names."

"Technically he said 'like a jackass,'" Zim said. "Not 'jackass.'"

"How did you become a master of the English language?" Rico asked. "Taking lessons from Bruni while he bones you?"

"Enough!" Hammond yelled. "Carter, take over."

"Yes sir." Carter stood up, holding a sheaf of papers. "I'm sure you remember P2X-345, where we barely evacuated the indigenous people before the Goa'uld attacked and took over their planet."

"Don't remind me," O'Neill said. "SG-12 was a good team."

"Thanks to some Tok'ra intelligence, we've recently determined that it would be easy to take the planet back and strike a serious blow to the Goa'uld, in particular Anubis."

"That's a tall order, Carter," O'Neill said. "As I recall, P2X-345 was heavily guarded. What's changed?"

"After the battle on P2X-930, we eliminated a lot of Anubis's Jaffa forces. He felt the blow so badly that he's gathering reinforcements from P2X-345. Remember, he's planning a campaign against his fellow Goa'uld in the fourth sector of quadrant seven. He needs all the help he can get."

"Why do we care about this P-whatever?" Zim asked. "You guys lost it, right? The people who own the planet aren't there anymore. So what?"

"Never mind the politics, kid," O'Neill said. "You're just here to be a human shield."

"Yeah, about that," Jackson said. "I'm still not comfortable with—"

"Relax, Daniel. I don't think humanity will suffer if these two doorknobs aren't around anymore."

"Jack, that's just callous and uncaring and unacceptable."

"He sounds like Jeff Goldblum," Rico said.

"See?" O'Neill said. "My point exactly."

"We're not going to argue about this anymore," Hammond said. "The decision was made, and you have to live with it. Carter, proceed."

"Actually, Zim asked a valid question," Carter said.

Zim smiled and nodded at Rico, thinking they were even now. Then he realized that Carter had said his name. Maybe she wanted him. He pretended not to notice her by flipping through the pages in the file in front of him.

"Why should P2X-345 be so important to us? Well, it's located in a strategic site in the galaxy, for one. For another, it's one of Anubis's important bases. If we take this planet back, then we stand a good chance of crippling his efforts against the rest of the System Lords."

"Now that we've got that cleared up," O'Neill said, "what would we do with the planet, assuming we get control of it back? Move the original citizens back in? That seems a bit . . . odd."

"We can use it as a launching base for our own efforts against Anubis," Carter said. "There is a nearby planet that does not have a Stargate. It also is held by Anubis's forces. We can pretty much take out two planets for the price of one."

"That's a pretty good deal," O'Neill said.

"I've seen better at Walmart," Zim said.

"Shut up," O'Neill said. "I'm the one who cracks wise around here."

"So what's the plan?" Jackson asked. "Do we go to P2X-345 and politely ask for the planet back?"

"Turn to map A," Carter said. "If you'll see on the west side, there is . . ."

Zim tuned out. The map looked very confusing, and Carter didn't help matters much with her jargon. The team discussed attack plans, but Zim thought instead about Carter's boobs and how nice they would look draped over his face.

He glanced over at Rico and saw that his partner was looking at the exact same thing with a slight sparkle of drool in the corner of his mouth. Suddenly he wondered if Rico would make the first move. What if Carter fell for him instead? The fantasy in his mind started deteriorating, and he found himself hating Rico more than ever. The guy was worse than Fitz.

"Any questions?" Hammond asked.

"Nothing from me," O'Neill said. "Everything was crystal clear, sir. Good work."

"I have a question," Jackson said. He rubbed the space between his eyes. "If the, uh, Red Shirts get into any danger, are we supposed to just callously leave them behind? Or should they be treated like the human beings they are?"

No one knew how to respond except for Rico. "I'd save us."

"We never leave a man behind," O'Neill said. "However, I'm not sure that these guys are men, much less human."

"The word is pretty clear from on high," Hammond said. "If the core team members of SG-1 are in danger of any kind, they take priority over Red Shirts. If the risk is too high, leave them."

"And who decides when the risk is too high?" Jackson asked.

"Fer cryin' out loud, Daniel," O'Neill said. "Use your own judgment."

Jackson looked like he wanted to say more, but instead he nodded, fiddling with his glasses.

"All right," Hammond said. "You are a go. Meet in the gate room at 1400 hours. Dismissed."

"What's 1400 hours?" Zim asked.

"Easy," Rico said. "2:00 pm."

"How the fuck do you know that?"

"Because I'm smart, and I'm an adult."

Zim scowled. Fitz probably knew what 1400 hours was. Then again, he'd been in the Navy, so that would make sense.

Hammond stepped up to the Red Shirts. "When you meet the rest of SG-1 in the gate room, I want you to be ready to go to P2X-345. That means wearing the field uniforms you're wearing now, but it also means being equipped. Bring your backpacks and stop by the armory for your P90's and three clips of ammo. The rifle should be loaded with one of these clips. Understood?"

"You bet," Rico said.

"That's 'you bet, sir,'" O'Neill said.

Zim looked at his watch and saw it was almost one o'clock. There wasn't much time, but there was enough to go catch a quick nap. The two of them made their way back to their quarters, and Zim dropped into bed and closed his eyes. "Wake me up in forty-five minutes."

"Sure," Rico said. He waited a moment. Then: "Would you have any problem with me spanking it?"

"Yes, I would. Absolutely do not spank it."

"What? You'll be asleep. Besides, there's nowhere else to whack it around here."

"No."

"I'll be quiet."

"I'll hear you moving. Keep it in your pants."

"I'm just saying."

Silence. Then Zim heard a zipper go down. Rico rustled around a bit, and there was a slight clapping sound. Zim cursed under his breath and put the pillow over his head.

After a minute the infernal sounds stopped, but then Rico moved around, shuffling through things. "Hey Zim. You see any tissue around here?"

"Just fucking die, will you?" Zim said. He refused to remove the cocoon of his pillow.

"Guess I'll just use my sock."

"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!"

"Argh, huh?" Rico asked. "You've learned a lot from getting boned by Bruni."

Was it too late to quit Project Stargate? "Give up the boned by Bruni stuff. It's getting old."

Because of Rico's constant yammering and shuffling and rustling and moving, Zim got no sleep at all. Grumpy, he gave up and got ready for the mission. He went through his backpack to see what he had. Standard stuff. Some rations and cooking tools. Other equipment he might need. Nothing fancy.

He looked at his watch. "Ten minutes to go, Rico. Where's the armory?"

"I don't know. Don't you?"

"You had all this time, and you didn't look at a map?"

"You had all that time, too," Rico said. "You chose to take a nap instead."

"You chose to jerk off instead!"

"I think I spent my time well. Better than you did yours."

Zim felt his blood pressure rise, and though it hurt to keep the heat of his rage in, he clenched his fists and forced his indignation back down into his guts. He stood on shaky legs and walked over to the wall map. A quick examination told him where the armory was. "Follow me."

They stopped by the armory long enough to pick up their P90's and ammo. They made it to the gate room two minutes late.

O'Neill looked at his watch. "It's about frickin' time. What the hell were you guys doing? We've been waiting."

"Rico had to jerk off," Zim said.

"Zim had to sleep," Rico said.

"I'm sorry I asked. Front and center. Get ready for your first trip through the Stargate."

The ring was already lit up, and some weird-looking machine rolled through the vertical pool. It made a funny liquid sound as it passed.

"What's that?" Zim asked.

"It's a MALP," Carter said. "It's a probe we use to make sure we'll survive the trip through, and also to ensure that we'll know what we're getting into on the other side."

"Retrieving MALP footage," the sergeant in the observation booth above said. "All clear, Major Carter."

SG-1 walked toward the Stargate. Jackson and Teal'c went through first, and Carter followed. O'Neill stood behind Zim and Rico. "After you."

Rico looked at Zim. "Ladies first."

"Age before beauty," Zim said.

"Are you done with the stupid clichés?" O'Neill said. "Move yer asses!"

Zim approached the Stargate, expecting the smell of chlorine, Instead it reeked like a lightning storm. He hesitated just before passing through. He wondered exactly how this thing worked. He thought the Star Trek teleporter took a person's molecules apart and reassembled them at their destination. Was this like that? He didn't like the idea of being taken apart like that.

"Get going!" O'Neill said. When Zim didn't respond, he pushed Zim forward and into the Stargate.


	6. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

IT'S A TRAP!

It felt like he was in a vacuum. Stars went by him so quickly they looked like dashes. _Just like in Star Wars_ , he thought. _Fitz would love this shit._ Then everything solidified, and it looked like he was in a tunnel of clouds. The stars went much slower, and they screamed as they went by. Finally he saw an opening ahead, and he stumbled through, falling down a set of stone steps. "Fuck!" he yelled. He dragged himself up and brushed the dust off.

Rico arrived behind him, much steadier on his feet, but not very steady otherwise. He doubled over and heaved his guts up all over the stone steps. Zim leaped back, tempted to yell at his partner. Then he realized how stupid Rico looked. "You've got puke on your shirt! Remind you of anything?" Zim laughed.

Rico sneered at him. "How many restaurants can you never go back to?"

"At least I'm not on ," Zim said.

"That was photoshopped."

O'Neill came through last, and the Stargate powered down. He was about to amble down the steps when he saw Rico's mess. "What the hell is this?"

"Rico puked," Zim said. "Guess he can't handle wormhole travel."

"Fuck you, rapist," Rico said. He spat more puke-tinged saliva and wiped his mouth.

"Jesus!" O'Neill shouted. "This is disgusting!"

"Uh, Jack?" Jackson said. "You might want to keep your voice down. The Stargate is surprisingly unguarded for a planet that's supposed to be highly valued by Anubis."

"Do you think this is a trap, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.

"Well, I'm entertaining the possibility."

"It's a trap!" Zim said. When no one laughed, he sighed. "I miss Fitz. Kind of."

O'Neill shuffled around the puke puddle and cast his gaze around the planet. They were in a grove in a heavily wooded area. Plenty of places for an ambush.

"Proceed according to plan," O'Neill said. "Rico, you take point. Zim, watch our six."

"What's point?" Rico asked.

"What's a six?" Zim asked at the same time.

"See?" Jackson said. "Maybe we should have just added a couple of guys from the Air Force. You know, guys who know what taking point means. And what a six is."

O'Neill narrowed his eyes. "Shut up." He turned to Rico. "You're at the front of the line. If there's a trap, you fall into it first. Zim, you're at the back of the line. If someone sneaks up on us, you get killed first. Got it?"

"Is it okay if the big black guy takes my place?" Zim asked. "I kind of like being somewhere in the middle, where it's hard to find me."

"You're a Red Shirt," O'Neill said. "It's your job to die instead of us."

Teal'c approached Zim until he was standing a mere three inches away, both hands behind his back. "My name is not Big Black Guy. My father Ro'nac christened me with the glorious name of Teal'c. It means strength."

Zim looked at Teal'c biceps, which were wider than tree trunks. "I'm sure it does."

Teal'c dipped his head in a nod, then turned away.

Rico checked his weapon. "Okay, I guess I'll lead. Where are we going again?"

"You paid attention during the briefing, right?" Carter asked.

"I was . . . um, thinking about other stuff."

"Why do you think we have briefings?" Carter asked.

Rico took a shot in the dark. "So we know what we're doing?"

"Then why didn't you listen? Do you want to die?"

"Not really. I had other things on my mind."

"More important to surviving?" Carter asked.

"He was staring at your boobs the whole time," Zim said. He felt pleased with himself to throw his scumbag partner under the bus.

"And you weren't?" Rico asked.

"At least I wasn't drooling. And I didn't jerk off immediately after the briefing."

"At least I didn't wait until she was sleeping and try to finger bang her."

Carter turned pink. O'Neill said, "Shut the hell up, the both of you! Rico, get on point. Follow the red line on your goddam map! Zim, you're last in line. Make sure no one sneaks up on us. Go!"

Rico fumbled around in his pack, looking for the map, and Jackson handed him his own. "Thanks," Rico said. He squinted at the map for a while, and then turned it upside down, trying to figure out where they were. Finally, Jackson pointed to the map.

"Okay," Rico said. "Follow me, everyone!"

The rest fell into place, and O'Neill walked next to Jackson. "You still hate this Red Shirt idea? After seeing those two clowns in action?"

"They're . . . misguided. With a little training, I'm sure they'll do fine."

"You are an optimist." O'Neill said it as if he meant, "You're an idiot."

They walked in single file down a forest path, staying more than ten feet apart from each other, so one attack couldn't take them all out at the same time. Zim was bored, and he didn't pay much attention to his surroundings. Besides, if it was a trap, he figured the Goa'uld would come at them from the front, so Rico would get killed first. Why go through the trouble of sneaking up on them?

There was a sudden explosion from behind him and one from the front. The forest rattled with lots of movement as a bunch of guys with weird head tattoos and staff weapons emerged from both sides of the path.

"One of them stood out from the rest; his tattoo was gold, just like Teal'c's. "Surrender immediately, SG-1, or die."

O'Neill twisted his cap off his head and threw it down. "Son of a bitch! Rico! Didn't you notice anything?!"

"Sorry, I was pretending to play Call of Duty."

O'Neill ran a hand through his hair and spat on the ground. "Fer cryin' out loud."

The guy with the staff weapon stepped forward and aimed directly at O'Neill. "Drop your weapons."

With a collective sigh, SG-1 looked at each other and carefully lowered their weapons to the ground. "Congratulations, Rico," O'Neill said. "Your first mission just went FUBAR."

"Shoot," Rico said.

Zim smiled. At least he was no longer the biggest fuck up around here. Then he realized that this meant he was a prisoner, too. "Fuck. Way to go, Rico."


	7. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

ANUBIS

The Jaffa forced SG-1 into what looked like a pyramid. O'Neill said it was actually a Goa'uld mothership. The Jaffa pushed them down various hallways until they found themselves thrown into a small room. Their weapons were all taken away, and when they left, the leader hit a button and an energy field closed around the open doorway.

"Is that a force field?" Zim asked.

"Yep," O'Neill said.

"Cool." Zim reached up to touch it, and O'Neill did nothing.

Jackson stepped in and pulled Zim's hand back. "Don't do that."

"I always wanted to touch a force field," Zim said. "It would be like pushing against empty space.

Jackson pursed his lips. "Actually, it's a lot more painful than that. I wouldn't try it."

"Dammit!" O'Neill said. "You always ruin my fun."

Jackson rolled his eyes and took a seat next to O'Neill. "Sorry, Jack. You know I live to see you smile."

"I think you should have let him touch it," Rico said. "I live to see me smile."

Teal'c sat next to Rico. "What exactly is Call of Duty?"

Rico went into a long-winded explanation, and Zim sighed. What he would give to be playing Final Fantasy right now. There were no Jaffa and staff weapons and Stargates in the Final Fantasy world. More importantly, there was no SG-1. The force field hummed, and he still felt tempted to touch it.

Rico finally shut up, and Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Then you are a great warrior, are you not, Rico of Elk Grove Village?"

"I like to think that playing the game prepared me for serving on SG-1," Rico said.

"It certainly teaches you how to avoid falling into traps," O'Neill said. "Oh wait. No, it doesn't."

Carter sighed. "I can't believe it never occurred to me that this might be a trap. I feel so stupid. This is just as much my fault as it is Rico's."

No! Zim couldn't stand to hear Carter talk like that about Rico. Maybe he should make his move now. He started forward, hoping to sit next to her, but O'Neill intercepted him. "You couldn't have known, Carter. Rico, on the other hand, all he had to do was keep his eyes open."

Was there something going on between O'Neill and Carter? Zim hoped not. He knew he could put Rico in the ground if it came to a fight over Carter, but O'Neill? The two of them had known each other for a lot longer and probably had an understanding, or something. Zim cursed O'Neill's name in his mind and turned away.

"Think about it this way," O'Neill said. "They probably won't torture us. They want SG-1 alive and well. They'll probably take these two dumbasses apart, though." He pointed to Rico and Zim. "The thought kind of warms the cockles of my heart."

"Ah, SG-1. We meet again."

Zim looked up to the door of their cell and saw several Jaffa surrounding a newcomer wearing a huge dark cloak. He couldn't see much under the hood, but it looked like he had a bunch of crawling shadows for a face. The guy's voice sounded like spiders skittering over his ears.

The hooded figure turned to O'Neill. "It seems my plan to capture the most wanted SG team the galaxy has—"

"Blah blah blah," O'Neill said. "Ingenious supervillain plan. Got you in my grasp. Torture you like crazy. Etc. I get it. Now get to the point."

Rico laughed. "He made fun of the big scary guy."

"Silence!" the big scary guy said. "You dare make light of Anubis? I can crush your skulls just by thinking of it!'"

"I wish you would," Zim said. This whole witty banter thing was starting to be fun. "It'd be much better than being bored to death by you."

Anubis turned his gaze on Zim. "That's the one I want. Retrieve him and bring him to my examination quarters."

The Jaffa with the gold tattoo opened the force field and grabbed Zim by the arm, dragging him out of the cell. O'Neill smiled, pointing at Zim. "See? Better the Red Shirts than us."

Rico giggled uncontrollably. "Have fun getting tortured, Zim!"

The force field closed. Zim said, "Wait. Torture? Really?!"

"What did you think we were going to do with you?" Anubis asked. "Play tic-tac-toe?"

"Well, I'm actually pretty good at tic-tac-toe," Zim said.

"How good are you with torture?"

"Not too well. I think you'd do a lot better with the flat blond guy with the child molester's eyes."

"I'll just annoy you with snarky comments," Rico said. "Zim's a whiner. You'll have more fun inflicting pain on him."

"Yeah, but I really don't know anything," Zim said.

"You were in Stargate Command," Anubis said. "You've witnessed things that will be very important to me. Take him away!"

"But I didn't really pay attention!" Zim said. "I was too busy thinking about boobs and Final Fantasy!"

"And my junk," Rico said. "You watched me spank it. You know you did."

Zim didn't have time to argue; the Jaffa dragged him down the corridor and brought him to a room, where they strapped down his head, forcing him to look up into the bright ceiling lights. Before long, Anubis arrived.

"I'm telling you, my attention span is bad," Zim said. "I didn't even pay attention during the briefing. I was too busy looking at Carter's boobs."

"It doesn't matter, Cris Zim. You witnessed a lot. Do you know what this is?" Anubis held up a tiny spiked ball.

"I hope that's not an anal bead," Zim said.

"It's a mind probe. I'm going to put this in your head, and it will link our brains together. I will see everything you have seen, know everything you've known. This will help me invade Stargate Command. Thus will fall the earth to my possession."

"That sounds all supervillainy of you," Zim said. "Good luck. But you're not getting anything from me. I don't know shit."

"If you saw it, it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it will be in mine." Anubis cackled as he brought the spiked ball closer and closer to Zim's head.

Well, at least the guy didn't call him Zim.


	8. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

MORE LIKE ANUS-BIS!

Anubis jammed the mind probe into Zim's head, laughing as his subject writhed in pain. Zim screamed so loudly the sound echoed in the room. Even the Jaffa guards cringed when this happened. Then, finally, it was over. Zim dropped out of consciousness.

Anubis hovered over Zim's form. Concentrating on the probe, he braced himself as he entered his captive's head.

He managed to stay there for ten seconds before he recoiled in absolute horror with a scream of his own.

"My Lord!" the Jaffa leader said. "Are you all right?"

"The horror!" Anubis screamed. "How can someone like this live?!"

"What did you see, my Lord?"

"Such bleak darkness! This fool has slept his entire life away! And the little waking time he has is spent on making boxes and playing a stupid video game! How has he survived this long?"

"He didn't have a god like you to worship, my Lord," the Jaffa said. "Now that he knows your glory and power, maybe he—"

"No! I refuse to be worshipped by the likes of him! I didn't even tell you about his luck with women. I have never seen someone who shoots himself in the foot so often! He hits on barmaids. BARMAIDS."

"My Lord, he sounds like an utter swine."

Anubis grabbed the Jaffa by his armor and pulled him close so his diaphanous face was nearly pressed up against the tattooed forehead. "He doesn't know how to talk to women. He's an attractive man, but he just can't talk his way into pussy. These women hate him by the time they walk away."

"That's horrible," the Jaffa said. Fear rocked his bowels, and he did not want to be face to face with his god anymore.

"He's a horrible roommate," Anubis said. "He barely pays his bills, and he shirks his responsibility to the one known as Fitz. He—" The god screamed again and fell to his knees. "The images won't stop! By the Eye of Ra, it won't stop!"

The Jaffa ran to the aid of his god, but Anubis wouldn't unfold from his fit of agony. "Such misery! How can he live with himself?!"

Crippled, Anubis forced himself up to Zim's head, and his fingers scrabbled madly in his head until he pulled the mind probe out and crushed it in his hand until it was a fine powder. The images stopped coming, and he fell to the floor, crying with relief.

The Jaffa, confused, stood over his god. "My Lord?"

Finally, Anubis got ahold of himself and stood. "I should kill this worthless excuse for a Tau'ri. But no, I have a far better plan for him. If he can reduce a System Lord like me to a quivering mass, just think of what he can do to Stargate Command. Turn him loose by the Stargate. Let him go home. He'll tell them to send reinforcements to free SG-1, and when they do we'll cripple their forces."

"Surely they'll think this is a trap, my Lord."

"Probably. But their leader, Hammond of Texas, harbors a special affection for SG-1. He won't be able to stop himself." Cackling wildly, Anubis released Zim from the contraption and let the Jaffa guards drag him away.

When Zim woke up he was resting against the base of the Stargate. He didn't remember what had happened, at least after Anubis had taken him from their cell. Somehow he'd escaped. Maybe he'd gotten drunk like Bruni and battled his way out of the situation. Was it possible that a little bit of Future Booze Jesus lived within himself?

But SG-1 was nowhere to be found, not even Rico. That meant they were still captive. If he found his way back to earth, he'd probably have to tell that Hammond guy about this.

He staggered over to the weird device with all the symbols around a giant red button. What had Carter called it during the briefing? Right, a DHD. Zim remembered because he thought it stood for something funny, a Dial Home Device. Like ET. He also remembered that he needed to enter some kind of code into a GDO, another funny set of letters meaning Garage Door Opener. But he had no idea what either code was.

Dammit. Why did he have to be such a Bruce Campbell?

He noticed a note pinned to his shirt. It said, "Hey idiot! This is how to get home." And there was a series of symbols following. The writing looked strange, like maybe it wasn't written by a human hand. The letters were too spidery and creepy looking.

He remembered that he'd written down the iris code on the inside of his arm, since he knew he'd forget something like that. After punching in the address for earth, he rolled his sleeve up and looked at the iris code. It took him a moment to realize that having such an important number so blatantly written on his arm was probably a breach of security. If Hammond knew he'd done that, he'd probably get fired. Not that that bothered him too much.

Then he realized that Anubis had missed it. "More like Anus-bus," he muttered. Why wasn't the address for earth working? Wait, didn't he have to hit the red button, too?

Finally the Stargate powered up, and energy shot out from the metal circle. Zim went through his pack and found the GDO and punched in the numbers he needed. Then, confident, he strode through the Stargate.

When he stepped out in the gate room, he looked up to the booth to see Hammond watching him. "Where's the rest of SG-1?"

"Uh . . . they've been taken prisoner," Zim said. "By Anus-bis. The whole thing was a trap. You should probably send some people to rescue them, or something."

The Stargate shut down, and Hammond shook his head. "How did you escape?"

Zim shrugged. "I guess I'm just that cool."

Hammond came down into the gate room with a team of doctors, who immediately started examining Zim. One of them touched his stomach, then shook her head.

"All right," Hammond said. "We'll have to send SG-2, 4 and 7. They're all I can spare right now."

"Sir, that's a bad idea," said the sergeant in the booth. "This is surely a trap."

"I know, but this is SG-1 we're talking about. Zim, you're going with those three teams to let them know the lay of the land. Get new weapons and be ready in five.

Soldiers flooded into the gate room, suited up and ready to go. And that was when Zim saw HIM. "No. This can't be. This can't be happening."

DD stepped forward, putting on a battle helmet, holding a P90. "Holy shit! Zim! Long time, no see. You're a Red Shirt, too?"

"Oh fuck," Zim said. "Fuck my fucking fucked up luck."

"We should talk later," DD said. "You know that they don't have a band here? I'm going to start one. You're a singer, right? You should join my band."

Zim felt a despair like none he had ever experienced before.


	9. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

DD IN ACTION

Because this is what they usually did, SG-1 found a way to escape from their prison cell. Carter figured out a way to shut the force field down, and they quietly filed out of the room. There were no guards nearby.

"Where are our guns?" Rico asked. "We should get our guns. I feel naked without my P90."

O'Neill closed his eyes, grimacing. He slapped his forehead several times. "Dammit, Rico. You just put a horrible, horrible image in my head. I'm going to need that Goa'uld brain scanner to get rid of it."

"What? I like my P90. I think I'll name him Friend. Because he's a really good friend."

"Maybe we should be quiet," Jackson said. "You know, since we're escaping prisoners and everything."

"Are we leaving Zim behind?" Rico asked. "Because that would be awesome."

"Of course not," Jackson said.

O'Neill overrode him: "I know we never leave a man behind, but this time WE'RE LEAVING A MAN BEHIND. Let's go."

"Jack, I—"

"Ah!" O'Neill said. "The call's been made."

"Sir," Carter said. "This mothership has had a few adjustments. Things I've never seen before. Since we're here, I was wondering if maybe we could get a look at the engine room."

"Come on, Carter," O'Neill said. "We're trying to escape, and you want to look under the hood?"

"If Anubis has made changes, we should know about it," Carter said. "Besides, I feel bad about falling into this trap. Let me make it up to SG-C.

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "Fine. But if you get us captured again, I will never forgive you."

Zim, freshly armed with a new pistol and P90, returned to the gate room just in time. SG-2, 4 and 7 were ready to go, and Sgt. Coburn, the CO of SG-2, commanded Zim to join the rest of the Red Shirts at the front of the procession. As luck would have it, DD approached and gave him a nod. "Finally going into battle, huh? This is pretty cool."

"Not really," Zim said. "I'd rather be back in Lisle."

"I'd rather be knocking a few back at Browerhouse," DD said. "By the way, you know my partner, right?"

"WHAT?!" a voice croaked from behind Zim. He whirled around and saw a skinny baldheaded man he recognized from many nights of karaoke with Fitz.

"PAISLEY?! What are you doing here?"

"What the rest of us Red Shirts are doing," DD said. "He's worthless to society, just like me."

"And you're proud of that?" Zim asked.

"Why not? Fuck the pol-lice."

"Shut up," Zim said. "Just stop talking."

The Stargate powered up, and Hammond gave the order to move out. As Zim suspected, the Red Shirts were going through first. No MALF this time. He guessed they were the new MALFs.

Zim stepped through and realized that he was getting used to the light show in between Stargates. He didn't lose balance this time, and he certainly didn't feel sick. He stepped aside just as DD stumbled through.

"That was weird," DD said. "And cool. And—" And he puked all over the steps, just like Rico.

Paisley came through next, and he seemed perfectly fine. "That was rad," he said. "I can't wait to do it again."

Next came the rest of the Red Shirts, and then the SG teams. When Lt. Sheppard from SG-4 came through, he commanded SG-7 to hold the gate while the rest of them moved forward. "Lead the way, ZIm," Sheppard said.

Zim brought them down the path through the forest where they'd been ambushed earlier. This time he paid more attention because he didn't want to get captured again. Having that spiked ball stuck in his head hurt like hell. He still had a headache, and he wondered if he should see a doctor about it. Maybe get a CAT scan . . .

"This is amazing, sir," Carter said. "I can't believe Anubis made these changes."

O'Neill and the rest of SG-1 stood around in the engine room. None of them seemed impressed by their surroundings. O'Neill barely seemed to be paying attention.

Carter examined the crystals closer. "Wait. This is not good. How did Anubis come up with this?"

"Come up with what?" Jackson asked.

Carter straightened out. "As hard as it may seem, this mothership is run with a naquadria hyperdrive engine."

"So?" O'Neill asked.

"Aren't those notoriously unstable?" Jackson asked.

"As we found out with the Prometheus, yes," Carter said. "Very. But I don't know how—"

"Jonas Quinn had his mind probed by Anubis," Jackson said. "Remember when he stopped by Kelowna? We thought he didn't get any naquadria, but maybe we were wrong."

"Again, so what?" O'Neill said. "We've had our look-see. Let's get out of here."

"Sir, Anubis has it all hooked up wrong," Carter said. "I don't know what he was thinking when he threw this together, but it could blow up at any second."

"Oh," O'Neill said. "It's like that, is it?"

"Let it blow up then," Rico said. "Fuck these guys."

Jackson rubbed the spot between his eyes, trying to ignore the pain Rico had just caused in his head. "Maybe we shouldn't blow it up because we're still inside the ship."

"No, like set a charge, get out and watch it blow up from a safe distance."

O'Neill smiled humorlessly. "Now, why didn't I think of that?"

"You don't get it, sir," Carter said. "This setup is so delicate, I'm surprised it hasn't exploded already."

"All right," O'Neill said. "Let's move out. Fiddling around isn't worth the risk."

Rico's face lit up. "Ooo! Shiny!" And he pulled at one of the crystals in the hyperdrive.

"No!" Carter screamed. "Don't—"

ZIm and the rest of his army made it to the clearing in the woods where the mothership stood off in the distance. "There it is."

DD and Paisley looked at the pyramid, shaking their heads. "Stole it from the Egyptians," DD said.

"Well, actually," Zim said, "I think that—"

And then the pyramid before them exploded, sending shrapnel showering all around them. Everyone flinched and took cover except for DD, who was perhaps too stupid to die. Somehow, none of the fiery debris found him.

"Now that was awesome," DD said. He grinned with a mouthful of jagged teeth.

Zim peeked out from behind a tree, shocked at the destruction of the Goa'uld mothership. "Holy fuck. SG-1 was in there."

"Are you sure?" Sheppard asked. "That was the mothership they were in?"

"Positive."

The SG teams around him removed their hats in shock and despair. And mourning. Zim left his on, thinking that he'd failed his first mission and had gotten a lot of people killed. But then he realized that Rico was dead, and that cheered him up a little.


	10. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

SG-1 RIP

The gate room was filled with SG-C personnel, and as the sole survivor of SG-1, Zim was given a front row seat to the empty coffins representing the bodies of O'Neill, Jackson, Carter, Teal'c and Rico. American flags were draped over each coffin, and Hammond stood at the front of the room with the Stargate behind him like a halo. Some bald-headed guy in a funny outfit stood next to him, weeping his eyes out. Zim didn't pay much attention, but he was pretty sure he'd heard Hammond refer to this guy as Jacob. He got the idea that he was Carter's father.

Zim kind of enjoyed the dress uniform he'd been given. It looked real nice, and he was pretty sure it would get him laid. Not that there were a lot of chicks around here. His best chance would be to prowl around the ladies locker room. Yeah, that was the way to go. Pull a Pervdoz. Not literally, though.

"We gather here today to say goodbye to the flagship field team of Stargate Command," Hammond said, "known as SG-1. I never thought I'd see the day that we'd lay to rest the spirits of these fine men and woman. I have known Jack O'Neill for many years. He was among the first of our race to travel the stars. He was a close friend, and—"

Zim tuned out. Instead he thought about how he'd never get to check out Carter's boobs now. He wondered if Rico managed to get a glimpse of them before he died. Probably did. The bastard.

"And I never thought I'd actually lay Daniel Jackson to rest," Hammond said. "He's died so many times I thought it would never take. Not in the end. And Teal'c, who joined our cause to help fuel his. Today, we have Master Bra'tac to say a few words before bringing his finest student back to his home world of Chulak."

Another guy with a weird head tattoo made his appearance and started talking about Teal'c in tones that made him sound like he was in some stupid old play from back in whenever the hell Shakespeare lived. Very boring. Zim tuned out again. And then Jacob got to say a few teary-eyed things about his daughter. The only thing that stood out was when Jacob said he was glad that Anubis had been slain in the same explosion that took Carter's life. "She'd have been happy to know that even in her moment of death, she was taking out the most powerful System Lord in the galaxy."

Hammond gently touched Jacob's shoulder, and the weepy baldheaded guy retreated from the lectern. "Lastly we have our first Red Shirt casualty. Rico wasn't with SG-1 for very long, but in his brief time with them he stood out as a true warrior. With fifteen Jaffa kills to his name on his very first day, he will be greatly missed. I'd now like to turn the floor over to his partner, Cris Zim. If you would please say a few words about your dearly departed friend."

What?! He had to say nice things about Rico? What the fuck was this? Doing his best to keep his scowl off his face, Zim approached the lectern as slowly as he could. He cleared his throat directly into the mic, causing a bit of feedback to screech through the gate room. Everyone cringed.

"Um. I've known Rico for a long time, and he was . . . um . . ." He gritted his teeth. "A great guy. One of the best I've ever known. I'm sure he'd be happy knowing that he helped take down a big bad. Thanks." And he got away from the mic as soon as he could.

Bra'tac and several other Jaffa took Teal'c's coffin through the Stargate, and the rest of SG-1's coffins were airlifted out, where they would be flown to Arlington Cemetery in Washington . . . except for O'Neill, who had wanted to be laid to rest near his cabin in Minnesota.

As Zim went back to his quarters, DD approached. "That sucks, man. You lost your entire team your first time out."

"Thanks for reminding me," Zim said.

"I wanted to tell you that I found a singer for my Stargate band. Paisley sings pretty well. Except all he wants to sing is Prince, for some reason. Oh yeah, and Snoop Dogg, too."

"You got Paisley to sing for your band?" Zim asked.

"I'd have preferred you, but you didn't seem too interested."

"Eh, that's okay. Paisley's good." Zim could barely believe the words coming out of his mouth.

"You wanna watch us play? We got some Red Shirt from SG-10 to play drums. We're kind of good."

"No, I'm going to, um, mourn the passing of my friend."

"All right, well, you take care."

Finally DD went away. This freed Zim up to go back to his bunk and get some shuteye. However, just as he laid his head down, Hammond entered, accompanied by Jacob. "Zim, I'm sorry to interrupt you in your time of mourning," Hammond said, "but I feel that this is important."

Zim sighed. "Sure. Go ahead. Sir."

Jacob spoke this time. "I know it's hard losing your entire team. And it's been hard on me, too. Sam was my daughter, and Colonel O'Neill has been a friend of mind for a long time. But I think I might know a way we can reverse this. I'm going to need your help, though."

No. More work? And it would mean bringing Rico back to life? Fuuuuuuuck. "What's up?" Zim asked.

"You're new, so you probably don't know that I'm Tok'ra. We're like the Goa'uld, but we're the good guys. Our name means 'against Ra.'"

"That means you got one of those things in your guts?" Zim asked.

"Yes. I am host to Selmak, which means that I have access to all the knowledge of the Tok'ra for as long back as he can remember. He seems to recall something about an Ancient device that can be used to move time back five seconds. It lets you have kind of a do-over, if you get me."

"Like when I die in Final Fantasy?"

"Uh . . . sure. But the problem is, Selmak doesn't know where this device might be. We need to use the Ancients' repository of knowledge to find it. That means downloading it into your brain so you can help us retrieve it."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is. From our experience, only the Asgard have been able to reverse the process. But it's vital to the survival of SG-1 and the return of your friend, Rico."

My friend?! Zim wanted to spit this back in Jacob's face, but he knew that wouldn't be a good idea.

"Once we have the device in our hands, we have a method of time traveling. If we calculate things correctly, we'll be able to put you through the Stargate during a sun spot incident. With some degree of certainty, we'll be able to put you back to the moment before Anubis's ship exploded. You can then use the device to stop the ship from detonating with SG-1 onboard."

"That sounds like a lot of ifs," Zim said. "Are you sure-?" This thing is going to be worth it, he was about to finish.

"It's going to work? It's got to."

"We just need your permission," Hammond said. "This is going to be an all Red Shirt assignment led by Jacob here. You would be second in command. We just need you to select three other Red Shirts."

"Wait, the level of danger on this one's pretty high, right?"

"Of course," Hammond said.

Zim smiled. "Get me DD and Paisley. And what other Red Shirts to we have?"

Hammond rattled off a list of names until Zim heard one he recognized. "Yes! That's the one! GET ME PERVDOZ."


	11. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

MR. KNOW-IT-ALL

"Very well," Hammond said. "Be ready to go at 1600 hours. Be armed and ready in the gate room. Understood?"

"Um . . . what is—"

"That's four pm."

"Thanks. Sir."

One hour. Not much time for a nap. Zim cursed as he threw his head back and tried to close his eyes. Sleep refused to come.

After attempting to nap for about 30 minutes, Zim gave up and suited up. With a short stop at the armory, he made his way to the gate room (for which he no longer needed a map). Jacob waited for him, as did DD, Paisley and Pervdoz.

"How's it going, Pervdoz?" Zim asked.

"Life sucks, as usual."

"I miss you on Facebook, what with your Simpsons obsession and your addiction to IMGUR."

Pervdoz rolled his eyes. "Like you know anything about it."

"All right," Jacob said. "There are only two Ancient repositories that we know of. One of them was destroyed, but the original is still in the small room we learned about from Heliopolis. We're going to travel there, and each of us will try to download the Ancients' knowledge."

"What if that doesn't work for us?" Zim asked. "We're not exactly the A-cast here."

"It's got to," Jacob said. "For SG-1's sake."

"Seventh chevron locked," the sergeant in the booth said.

"Jacob," Hammond said, "you are a go."

The Stargate shimmered, and Jacob led the way through, followed by the rest of the Red Shirts. Pervdoz did not look up from his phone, not even when he stepped out the other side.

The planet looked completely different from anything else Zim had seen so far. Maybe they'd transported themselves into HR Giger's mind. But there was something built into the wall that looked like a giant Viewmaster. Zim hoped they had some Mickey Mouse on it.

"Okay, Zim," Jacob said. "Step up and give it a try."

"Why don't you try?" Zim asked.

"Because I'm in command here. I have to watch your backs. Just do it."

"Why do I feel like I'm about to stick my dick in a glory hole?" Zim approached the Viewmaster and gingerly put his face up to the screen.

Nothing happened.

Zim stepped away. "Oh well." Not feeling very disappointed.

DD bellied up next, and nothing happened. "Maybe I'm not smart enough."

"Step aside," Paisley said. He pressed his bald head up to the screen, and when nothing happened, he refused to step down. "It's got to work. Rico can't stay dead."

Nothing.

"Come on, Pervdoz," Jacob said. "It's your turn."

Pervdoz let out a frustrated sigh as he pried his eyes away from IMGUR on his phone. He pressed his face against the screen. "There. Happy?"

Two hands shot out of the wall and gripped his head tightly, holding him to the Viewfinder screen. Lights shot out at him and passed through his eyes directly into his brain. Pervdoz gasped, trying to close his eyes, but he had no power to resist. Finally, the thing was done with him and dropped him to the floor.

Jacob approached. "Are you all right?"

"Ugh. It nearly blinded me. But I'm fine." Pervdoz stood up. "Let's get the fuck out of here. I'm tired."

"I never thought I'd agree with you more," ZIm said. "It's nap time."

Jacob dialed home and activated his iris code. They stepped through and arrived at the gate room. The Stargate powered down behind them.

Hammond approached. "Report."

"It worked," Jacob said. "It downloaded into Pervdoz. Now, all we have to do is wait for him to be, uh, inspired."

"Great," Zim said. "I'm going to my bunk, get some—"

Pervdoz ran up the stairs to the observation booth. He pushed aside the sergeant. "Hey! What are you—"

"I don't know," Pervdoz said. "I feel like something wants you to know something."

He typed furiously, and Hammond watched over his shoulder. It soon became apparent that he was dialing out to another planet. The Stargate turned on, and the sergeant turned to Hammond. "Sir, I know this address. We've been here before."

"Well?" Hammond asked. "What is it?"

"Altair."

"Why there? What's the point?"

"I don't know. But someone really wants these Red Shirts to meet Harlan."

"Are we a go?" Jacob called out from the gate room.

Pervdoz looked at Hammond, waiting. Hammond said, "You're a go."

Just as Jacob and the Red Shirts went through the Stargate, Hammond turned to the sergeant. "How many years have you been working for the Stargate project?"

"Eight years or so, sir," the sergeant said.

"I still have no idea what your name is."

"It's—"

"Don't tell me. I don't' want the mystery spoiled."


	12. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

STATION!

When Zim came out of the other side of the Stargate, he looked around to see what seemed to be a very technological world. He didn't see anything except for control panels and expensive looking wiring. There was nothing natural in sight. Which he supposed was kind of good. Nature never really did much for him.

Wait, there was one natural thing: a guy. A fat old guy wearing weird clothes stood before him, holding his hands together in an odd gesture. "Comtraya!" he said. His voice was high-pitched and piping.

"You must be Harlan," Jacob said. He introduced himself.

"You're not Tau'ri," Harlan said. "Tok'ra?"

"That's right."

"And I recognize those uniforms," Harlan said. "You're with SG-C, yes?"

"SG-1," Zim said. He felt comforted by this, but he didn't know why. So he went with it.

"Me and Paisley are with SG-4," DD said.

Pervdoz didn't say anything, not that Zim expected him to. Even without all the knowledge of the Ancients in his head, he was always more interested in texting people rather than talking to them. Instead of hovering over his phone, though, he stared ahead at Harlan. Actually, more like behind him.

"To what do I owe this visit?" Harlan asked. He bowed almost low enough to headbutt the floor.

"Actually, I don't know," Jacob said. "All I know is—"

Pervdoz broke free from the group and ran around Harlan, headed for another room. Harlan put out a hand, trying to stop him, but Pervdoz kept going. "No! Don't go back there! You're not allowed!"

Paisley and DD rushed after their companion. Jacob and Zim exchanged glances, and the Tok'ra leader shrugged. "Let's go."

"Please!" Harlan said. "Don't!" He grabbed Jacob's sleeve, but Jacob pulled away.

Zim rounded the corner into the next room and found himself face to face with . . . JACK O'NEILL?! And Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter and Teal'c? "Holy shit! I thought you were dead!"

O'Neill blinked. "It's not every day that a complete stranger tells me I'm supposed to be dead."

"Ah," Jacob said. "We wondered if you'd do this, Harlan."

"Please, do not tell General Hammond about this," Harlan said. "I just had to remake them. It's too lonely around here."

"We're not actually SG-1," Jackson said. "I mean, we are, kind of. We're just as good as our counterparts, but we're androids with their memories."

"I have no symbiote," Teal'c said, "so I have no need to Kel'nor-Reem."

"I kinda miss drinking Guinness," O'Neill said. "And there's no good fishing around here."

"But there's a lot of technology to play with," Carter said.

"And there's a lot of time to learn new things," Jackson said.

"But mostly we just want to use the Stargate again," O'Neill said. "Harlan won't let us, and we're getting kind of antsy."

"I think we're actually here to enlist your help," Jacob said. "The actual SG-1 has been killed, and we're working on a plan to turn back time. Would you be willing to help us?"

"Absolutely," O'Neill said. "We've been chomping at the bit to explore the galaxy."

"All my knowledge is going to waste here," Jackson said. "I mean, it's nice to gather new information about the universe, but if there's no application—"

"Shut up," O'Neill said. "We'll help. That's all you need to know."

"No!" Harlan howled. "Don't do that!"

Zim turned to see Pervdoz tearing bits and pieces off the walls. It all looked very important, but why the hell was he trashing the place? Pervdoz picked through the pieces, selected what he wanted and set it aside.

"You're ruining my home!" Harlan shouted.

"Wait," Jacob said. "He's got the knowledge of the Ancients in him. They're telling him to do something. Just let him work."

"But he's destroying—"

"I'm sure we can fix anything that gets ruined," O'Neill said. "I remember how this goes. There's no stopping him. Not unless you guys came with Thor?"

"Not this time," Jacob said.

Harlan bit his fist and averted his eyes while Pervdoz continued working. Soon he started combining pieces, and it became apparent that he was building a humanoid robot.

In the meantime Zim stared at O'Neill. "You look so real. Are you sure you're a robot?"

"Just as sure as I am that you're an idiot." O'Neill walked immediately away.

"Sorry," Jackson said. "He's been angry for a while. Being stranded here hasn't worked out for him very well."

"It's okay," Jacob said. "Jack's right. Zim's an idiot."

"Thanks," Zim said.

The robot looked bulky and greasy, but within the hour Pervdoz was done putting him together. At this point he rushed over to Jacob and removed a device from his pocket. Jacob looked like he wanted to object, but he gave in without argument.

Zim looked at the robot and laughed. "This reminds me of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey."

"That was a cool movie," DD said. "Station!"

Paisley rolled his eyes. "Purple Rain, now that's a movie!"

O'Neill sighed. "Where did you get these losers, Jacob?"

Jacob offered a lame smile. "You work with what you have, Jack. You know how it is."

"I don't even know how this one remembers to breathe." O'Neill pointed at Zim.

"Hey! I'm sick of this crap!" Zim said. "I'm not as stupid as people say I am!"

"Oh God. It's worse, isn't it?"

Zim opened his mouth to bitch some more, but O'Neill got in his face. "I'm a colonel. What's your rank?"

This threw Zim off. "I'm supposed to have a rank?"

"Witness if you will." O'Neill gestured to Zim. "Squat."

Pervdoz reached between them with the device he'd taken from Jacob. He attached it to Zim's head and waited. "What the fuck are you doing?" Zim asked.

Pervdoz didn't answer. Instead Zim found his memories flashing back to just about every moment he'd ever spent with Rico. Once again he relived the moment in their quarters when Rico decided to spank it. Zim groaned. "Whatever this is, stop it! This sucks!"

Pervdoz plucked the disc from Zim's temple, which caused a jolt of pain to run through his head. "What was that for?! That hurt!"

Pervdoz went back to work on his robot. He attached the disc to the robot's head and flicked a switch. The metallic beast powered up and sauntered forward with a stupid grin on its inhuman face.

"Hey guys," it said. "How's it going?"

"What the hell is this?" Zim asked.

The robot emitted a creepy laugh. "My name's Robo-Rico. And you're Zim, my bestest buddy in the galaxy."

"So I see SG-1 is reunited," Jacob said. He had a big smile on his face.

"You wouldn't be so happy if you knew what he's like," Zim said.

"You wouldn't be so happy if you knew what your face was like," Robo-Rico said.

"Oh shit," DD said. "There goes the planet."

Zim closed his eyes. When would this nightmare be over with?


	13. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

ONLY ONE MAN CAN HELP US NOW . . .

As soon as they got back to earth, Pervdoz showed no signs of inspiration. Instead of making something or going somewhere, all he wanted to do was watch the Simpsons. He went off to his bunk, and the rest of the team went their own ways. Zim went to finally get some sleep, but Robo-Rico followed him.

"Leave me alone," Zim said.

"I'm just going to my bunk," Robo-Rico said. "Get some shut-eye."

Zim sighed and slumped down on his bed. "Just keep quiet, will you?"

Silence. Robo-Rico, who now wore a mop on his head to simulate hair, sat at the edge of his own bed. "Do you mind if I spank it?" he asked.

"You're a robot! You can't spank it!"

"I have needs, too."

"Can't you just shut yourself down?"

"No. That would be stupid."

"But you're not a human being! You're a fucking kitchen appliance!"

"I could say the same for you, but I'll take the high road."

Zim groaned and slipped a pillow over his head, hoping the oxygen deprivation would make him pass out. It didn't, and before long he heard a metallic clanking sound. Over and over and over again.

Days went by, and still nothing from Pervdoz. Zim spent a lot of his time napping, and Robo-Rico spent his time spanking it. DD and Paisley had a lot of band practice, but they never got better. DD broke up the band because he was sick of playing Prince songs. Paisley kept singing even without the others.

Jacob and Hammond did a lot of brainstorming, and the best they could come up with was they needed a way to figure out the time travel aspect of this problem. They brought in some guy named McKay, who treated everyone like simpletons and raged around SG-C like a frantic lunatic at all hours.

In the meantime the android SG-1 were bored. Jackson spent a lot of his time leafing through his books, mostly pleased that his human counterpart had made a few new purchases. Carter worked with McKay, but she seemed to shoot down everything he came up with.

"I can't work like this!" McKay said to Hammond. "This is the wrong Carter! She's sexy as ever, but she's not as smart as the Carter I'm used to!"

Carter opened her mouth to object, but McKay held up a finger. "No offense, of course. Think about it as if we're on a TV show. You're second season Carter. I need seventh season Carter. She just has more experience."

No one knew quite how to take that, so they let it go. Meanwhile Teal'c took up his time working out, and Jack O'Neill spent his time moping about. At one point Zim found him sitting on the floor in the commissary, bouncing a rubber ball against the wall over and over again.

"Hey!" Zim said. "That's from the Great Escape! The Cooler King!"

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "At least you have good taste in movies. I'm starting to think we were better off hanging out with Harlan. This is boring the hell out of me."

"I'm sure things will pick up as soon as Pervdoz gets his shit together," ZIm said. "Though that could take a while."

"You're one to talk about getting his shit together," Robo-Rico said. "Nappy McNappington."

"You don't get to say that to me," Zim said. "At least I had a job before this whole Red Shirt thing began. You were sitting at home, watching TV and thinking about some junkie whore who fucked you over."

"You were homeless," Robo-Rico said. "You had no job, remember? You were lost in the Colorado woods when they found you.

"OH SHUT UP!" O'Neill yelled. He stood and stalked out of the room. Neither Zim nor Robo-Rico noticed when this happened, so they continued arguing.

O'Neill went straight to Hammond's office and walked in without knocking. "Look, I can't take being cooped up like this. Isn't there some kind of life or death mission we could go on? Keep our minds occupied?"

"Colonel, we need you to be on standby in case something happens with this mission. If you're out gallivanting around the galaxy when Pervdoz gets inspired to do something, then what do we do?"

"I just can't stand this," O'Neill said. "I know this whole knowledge of the Ancients thing works. This could take forever. Can I at least go fishing?"

Hammond was about to object when his phone rang. "Hammond," he said into the receiver. "I'll be right there." He hung up. "Let's get to the gate room. Pervdoz is dialing out to another planet."

They sounded the alarm, and the rest of the Red Shirt team arrived in the observation booth, watching as the final chevron locked into place. The Stargate powered up, and Pervdoz looked up to Hammond. "We ready to go?"

Hammond looked around at the others. "Get suited up. We'll send a MALP through in the meantime. Double time it, folks. You know how much it costs to keep this thing on."

As soon as everyone was geared up and back in the gate room, the sergeant had done a reading on their destination. "Everything's clear," he said.

Hammond nodded. "You have a go."

"Move out!" O'Neill yelled. He looked very happy to finally be doing something.

Once on the other side everyone stood around staring at their surroundings. DD whistled. "Wow, look at those pyramids. Cool."

Jackson glanced around. "Actually, they're not pyramids. They're ziggurats."

"Juggernauts?" Zim asked.

"No, ziggurats."

"Are you sure?" DD asked.

"Uh . . . yes. I'm pretty sure. You know, I went to college for this kind of thing. I'm an archaeologist."

"Like Indiana Jones?" Robo-Rico asked.

Zim tried his Sean Connery accent: "You call this archaeology?"

Jackson rubbed the spot between his eyes. "Not quite. I . . ." He blinked and shook his head. Instead of arguing with these morons, he decided to take a different tactic. "You can tell the difference between pyramids and ziggurats pretty easily. The latter have flat tops, like these." He pointed. "Typically found in Mesoamerican cultures, they—"

"Enough with the history lesson," O'Neill said. "Spread out and secure the perimeter. DD, Paisley, you've got Gate duty. Jacob, you're with me."

The team spread out and took their positions. Zim glanced around, but he didn't see anyone who might be a threat. Jackson approached one of the ziggurats and examined the hieroglyphics on the side. "Fascinating. This is Mayan. It's making the claim that this city is Cibola."

"And that is?" O'Neill asked.

"The City of Gold," Jackson said.

"Oh. Well, that's cool."

Pervdoz walked off on his own, and everyone knew well enough by this point that they were supposed to follow him. They went around the ziggurats until they reached the center of Cibola, where the indigenous population had gathered together. They surrounded a single man dressed in turquoise and feathers. This man drank deeply from a vat of liquid, and he started shouting at the others. The crowd went wild.

Jackson, who had stayed behind to translate the glyphs, ran to catch up the others. "Jack! I think I know what's going on here!"

"It looks like a kegger," O'Neill said. "Reminds me of high school."

"The man they're all watching is their religious leader. He's making predictions in regards to the crops and other personal issues. But here's the catch: he can only predict the future when he's stark raving drunk."

"Sounds like fun."

"They have the device Jacob is looking for," Jackson said. "the one that reverses time by five seconds. If you look really hard, you can see it in his hand right now."

Zim squinted and saw a golden stick in the leader's fist. He waved it around like a scepter.

"No one but the leader is allowed to touch it," Jackson said.

"Then how are we going to get it?" Jacob asked.

"Well, that's a bit of a sticky wicket." Jackson paused to push his glasses up on his nose. "We can challenge his leadership, and if we win we can take possession of it. According to their rites, the contest is comprised of getting hammered and making wild predictions. Whoever is better wins."

"No problem," O'Neill said. "I didn't go to college, but the Air Force prepared me for this day. Let's do this."

"The predictions have to be accurate," Jackson said.

"Well, that's me out," O'Neill said. "Any ideas?"

Zim held up a hand. "Um, actually I have a pretty good one. But I'm going to need clearance from Hammond. We're going to need to find one of my friends."

"I don't know if I want to meet any of your friends," O'Neill said.

"You'll want to meet this one," both Zim and Robo-Rico said in unison.

"Jinx," Robo-Rico said.


	14. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

FUTURE BOOZE QUETZALCOATL!

Hammond looked across his desk at the assembled Red Shirts, androids and Jacob. He'd just listened to Zim's plan, and he thought it was absolutely absurd. Then again, he'd been in charge of Project Stargate for so long, he felt he could trust in the weird. "Are you sure this will work?" he asked.

"Positive," Zim said.

"Call your friend. We'll get him out here as soon as possible. Use my phone."

"I can't. Fitz won't pick up a strange number." Zim scrolled through his own cell phone until he found Fitz's number. He dialed and waited.

Fitz answered with a piercing Fitz whistle loud enough that even Robo-Rico cringed. "How's it going, Zim? How's that apartment working out for you?"

Zim scowled. He'd told Fitz he had something lined up, but his credit score was in the toilet. No one in their right mind would rent anything to him. "Well, life's full of surprises. Have you seen Bruni lately?"

"Oh. My. God. I have been waiting for this day for years. You are looking for Bruni? Why?"

"I need to ask him for a favor. It's really important."

"He's wanted to hang out with you for a long time. I think he'll be very happy to see you."

"Well, more to the point, I need Future Booze Jesus."

Fitz gagged. "Whoa. This is serious. I'm in."

Zim sighed. "No. I just need Bruni, okay?"

"I have to see this first hand. I'm not giving you Bruni's number if I can't come, too."

"Fine. Fine, you can come along. But I'm in Colorado."

"Colorado?! What the fuck are you doing out there? The apartment didn't work out?"

Zim covered the phone. "General, can we send a chopper to pick him up, or something?"

Hammond nodded. "In Chicago? We'll send a huey to O'Hare. Make sure he's there by 1100 hours central."

Zim relayed this information to Fitz. "And don't be late."

"Wait, you're having me flown to Colorado by helicopter? What the fuck have you gotten yourself into?"

"I'll explain when you get here." Zim hung up so he wouldn't have to answer any more questions. His phone rang, but he turned it off so he wouldn't have to deal with Fitz.

In the meantime, Hammond spoke with Daniel Jackson. "Are you sure you can do this?"

"Well, no one speaks Mayan anymore," Jackson said. "It's a dead language. No one even knows how it's supposed to sound. So . . . unless these guys magically speak English, like so many others in the galaxy, then we're kind of screwed."

"Come on, Daniel," O'Neill said. "You figured out how to speak Goa'uld. You even learned how to communicate with the Unas. You can work this out."

"I have no problem with hieroglyphics," Jackson said. "It's the actual speaking part that I'm lost on."

"We'll figure something out," Hammond said. "We'll get Zim's friends, and we'll see where we go from there. Dismissed."

Several hours later everyone sat in the briefing room, staring at Fitz and Bruni. Both of them stared back with wide eyes. Fitz said, "So Wormhole Xtreme is real?"

"You know, I really hate that show," O'Neill said.

"Let me guess," Fitz said. "You're supposed to be Colonel Danning."

O'Neill rolled his eyes.

Fitz turned to Carter. "You're Major Monroe." Daniel Jackson: "You're Dr. Levant." Teal'c: "Which means you must be Grell the Robot."

Teal'c straightened up. "I am not a robot. I am a Jaffa."

"Well, actually, you are a robot," O'Neill said. "It's okay. So are a lot of us."

"SG-1 are androids," Zim said. "So is Robo-Rico, in case you couldn't tell."

"Rico!" Fitz exclaimed. "I thought you looked familiar! Looks like you finally got a job. Still thinking about your bestie?"

"Every waking moment," Robo-Rico said.

Fitz sighed. "You know, I think I prefer Wormhole Xtreme. None of this looks real. And Danning actually looks like a colonel, unlike this guy." He gestured to O'Neill.

O'Neill looked to Hammond. "Permission to shoot this civilian, sir?"

Hammond smirked. "Denied, Colonel."

"Aw, come on!" O'Neill said. "Fer cryin' out loud! I never get to shoot anyone anymore!"

Jackson stepped in. "Perhaps we should actually discuss the real problem at hand. There is a reason we sent for you, Mr. Bruni. Zim tells us that you have a special ability, and we desperately need to utilize it."

"You're talking about Future Booze Jesus, right?" Bruni asked.

"Did you bring it?" Zim asked.

Bruni reached under the table and produced a massive bottle of Wild Turkey 101. "You bet I did."

Jackson eyed the bottle and shook his head. "Anyway, you don't happen to speak Mayan, do you?"

"I don't," Bruni said. "Future Booze Jesus might."

"Well, I'm going to have to translate for you," Jackson said. "Things are going to be rough, but we've been in tougher situations, so I think—"

"Name one," O'Neill said.

"One what?"

"Tougher situation."

"Uh . . ." Jackson had nothing.

"So, are you ready to get trashed and outdo someone else's drunken predictions?" Zim asked.

Bruni spun the top off the bottle and took five large gulps. "I'm always ready."

"Jesus," O'Neill said. "Sir, I hope we're a go. I don't think this will last very long."

Hammond nodded. "Everyone suit up and meet in the gate room in thirty minutes. Zim, make sure your friends have field uniforms, gear and P90s."

"P90s?" Bruni asked. "Those are guns, right?"

"Yeah," Fitz said.

"Good."

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "This is going to be a cluster—"

"Move out," Hammond said.

After everyone was outfitted and ready, the sergeant dialed the Mayan planet, and everyone stepped through the Stargate. On the other side, Fitz and Bruni exchanged glances. "That was nothing like on TV," Fitz said. "The special effects on this is stupid."

"I liked the screaming sound," Bruni said. His eyes were already dim, as he'd been hitting the bottle hard. He'd stepped through the Stargate while drinking from the bottle.

"How's the 'Beetus treating you?" Fitz asked.

"It's kicking up. My toes are tingling. Whoa! Look at these ziggurats!" Bruni looked around at his new surroundings in awe.

Jackson smiled and turned to DD. "See? Ziggurats."

"What?" DD asked.

"So this is really another planet?" Fitz asked. "Doesn't look too different. Didn't I see this place in The Ruins?"

"All right, enough jibber-jabber," O'Neill said. "Let's move out. Paisley, you're on point. Zim, watch our six."

Hey, I know what a six is! Zim thought. He took up the rear of their procession as they made their way through the lost city of gold. It seemed that everything here twinkled in the sun as if it were really made of gold. It didn't look anything like in National Treasure 2, though.

They approached the center of the city, where the indigenous people had gathered the day before. Now it was a bustling marketplace, and no one seemed to pay attention to the newcomers. They wouldn't even meet SG-1's eyes, as if they were pretending the earthlings didn't even exist.

The leader of the off-world Mayans, however, still sat in his place of honor, and he still drank like a fiend. His eyes weren't even looking in the same direction as he guzzled whatever booze he could get his hands on.

"This is the guy?" Bruni asked.

"That's him," Zim said.

"I don't know if I can take him. He clearly has the stomach for lots of booze."

"You'll put that guy in the ground," Fitz said. "He's already, like, twenty sheets to the wind. You'll hand him his own ass on a silver platter."

Jackson approached. "Well, I've got some good news. I've been listening to conversations around us, and I actually recognize some of the words. They don't speak Mayan exactly, but they speak enough middle age Spanish so I'll be able to understand them and they'll probably get the gist of what I'm saying."

"Well, that's good," O'Neill said.

"It's more than good, Jack. This is incredible news. This means that they were taken away from earth after the Spaniards invaded their world. That's a mere 500 years ago."

"So?"

Jackson scrunched up his face. "This is groundbreaking. The Goa'uld were in Central and South America later than Columbus sailed to America."

"I don't care, Daniel. Just make sure this thing happens so we can get the time thingy. Whatever it is."

"Well, here goes nothing." Jackson approached the leader and started spouting off in another language. The two of them went back and forth for a while, and it seemed like things were going well.

Fitz looked at Bruni's bottle. "You're not drinking enough."

"Don't worry. I'll get there." Bruni took several gulps from the bottle, as if he thought he were Belushi in Animal House. The level of booze went down considerably, but not epically.

Jackson turned to face his companions. "Good news, everyone. He's accepted our challenge."

The Mayans already started crowding around their leader, eager to see how this future booze battle would turn out. Fitz was excited. "This is the ultimate test of your powers, man. You psyched?"

"I AM DRUNK!" Bruni howled. "Stark raving drunk!"

"This can't be good," Robo-Rico said.

Jackson stood next to Bruni. "All right. Follow my lead. The rules are simple. First the two of you must toast to each other's health. You will share one another's alcoholic beverages. This is a thing of honor. Then, since he's the incumbent leader, he gets to make the first prediction. The response of the crowd will gauge how well he succeeds."

"That doesn't sound good enough," Bruni said. "I thought these predictions are supposed to come true. Immediately."

"Sometimes," Jackson said. "Regardless, you get to make the next prediction. The audience will once again vote by cheering. You two will do this until one of you runs out of predictions. Whoever this is will be considered the leader."

"Sounds reasonable," O'Neill said.

"Well, that's kind of complicated," Jackson said. He folded his arms and touched his chin with a couple of fingers. "You see, the winner gets to be leader. The loser . . . gets sacrificed to Quetzalcoatl."

"Uh . . . why wasn't this mentioned before?" Fitz asked.

"Enough!" Bruni shouted. "I will be the victor. I AM FUTURE BOOZE JESUS! AND I AM RISEN!"

"Great," Zim said.

Bruni stepped up to the leader's table. Two cups were placed on it, and a cask of booze stood by the leader's elbow. Bruni placed the Turkey on the table and sat down.

"These people say he's the human embodiment of Quetzalcoatl," Jackson said.

"That's a mouthful," Bruni said. "I won't say that."

Quetzalcoatl poured his booze into Bruni's cup. Bruni took that to be his cue to give the guy some of his Turkey. He made sure to fill the cup to the brim.

"Just to give you a warning," Jackson said, "one of the components of his beverage is hallucinogenic."

"I'll swallow his fucking soul," Bruni said.

Quetzalcoatl toasted Bruni, and Bruni toasted him back. The leader then gulped down the Wild Turkey 101 like it was water. Bruni chugged the native booze, too. It tasted slightly like cinnamon. Was this rye?

The leader then shouted out his first prediction. Jackson translated: "By the end of the week, we will suffer from a great storm. Many of our crops will be destroyed, but the season after this will be very fruitful."

The crowd roared with approval, and Zim decided this wasn't going to work. "We're fucked," he said to Fitz.

Future Booze Jesus, with great aplomb, gulped down more Wild Turkey than he'd ever taken in one moment. He rose, as grand as any ruler or savior. "YOU ARE ALL DOOMED! THIS WORLD WILL BE DESTROYED WITHIN THE HOUR! THE SUN WILL FALL FROM THE SKY, AND YOUR WORLD WILL BE SNUFFED LIKE A CANDLE!" He then sat and took another drink. "Next question." Even though no first question had been asked.

Jackson blinked. "That's kind of a big prediction to make right off the bat."

"I'm not kidding," Future Booze Jesus said. "Look." Pointing to the sun.

Carter squinted her eyes. "Actually, he could be right. Their sun looks like it might be getting ready to supernova. I've seen the signs before on previous missions."

"You're kidding me," O'Neill and Fitz said in unison. They glanced at each other, then shook their heads.

"You'd better translate it," Zim said.

Jackson cleared his throat and did just that. A murmur ran through the crowd, and as soon as he finished, the sun brightened for a brief moment, then turned into a dark disk floating in the sky.

The crowd panicked, and Quetzalcoatl puked all over the table and passed out. Bruni sneered. "Lightweight."

"Does this mean we win?" Robo-Rico asked.

O'Neill looked up at the dead sun falling toward the planet. "No, I think this means we all lost."


	15. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

OR NOT

Bruni finished his drink and reached across the table to the unconscious form of Quetzalcoatl, where he pried the time device loose from the former leader's hands. "You know, this just figures."

"What?" Fitz asked.

"I finally become a planet's god, and I'm about to lose it in a supernova."

"I hate it when that happens," Fitz said.

"How much time do we have, Carter?" O'Neill asked.

"It's hard to say, sir. No two supernovas are alike. But judging from the rate of stellar decomposition, I'd say we have two hours at the most."

"That's plenty of time to get back through the Stargate," Zim said. "Let's get going."

"Ah!" O'Neill shouted. "Not so fast. We have to do what we usually do in cases like this."

"And that is?"

"Evacuate the planet. SG-C will find another world for them at a later date. Daniel, get on it."

Jackson tried talking to the Mayans in their own language, but no one stopped panicking long enough to listen to him. Finally he looked impotently at O'Neill and shrugged.

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said. "Perhaps they are not listening to you because you are not their leader. Perhaps John Bruni of Elmhurst should tell them what to do."

Jackson looked at Bruni, eyebrows raised. Bruni sighed and took another gulp of Wild Turkey. He jumped up onto the table, eyes blazing like a warrior's. "LOYAL SUBJECTS! THIS PLANET IS ABOUT TO BE DESTROYED! OUR ONLY HOPE IS TO GET THROUGH THE STARGATE!"

Jackson translated, but he didn't do it loudly enough. Bruni looked at him. "You do not sound like you translate the words of a god. You should really try shouting."

"Uh, I thought I was pretty loud," Jackson said.

"You fool! You stumble through your translation of my glorious words! Sound off with conviction!" He paused for another drink. "I wonder how you got through college . . ."

"Well, maybe hard work and doing lots of homework helped," Jackson said.

Bruni repeated his words, and Jackson roared with conviction. This time, people stopped fleeing and paid attention to what he said. Bruni continued: "FROM THERE, WE WILL FIND A NEW HOME AMONG THE STARS! FOLLOW US AND LIVE!"

Hundreds of people gathered around, and Bruni stalked off toward the Stargate. First SG-1 and the Red Shirts followed, and then the entire population of the Mayan city followed. O'Neill turned to DD. "Run ahead and dial us home."

"Sure," DD said. "How do I do that?"

O'Neill sighed. "Do any of you Red Shirts know what you're doing?"

"No," Robo-Rico said. "But we're cool anyway. It makes us endearing."

"Jesus Christ," O'Neill said. "I thought I had my hands full with Felger and Coombs. Carter, you do the honors. And hop through to let Hammond know what's going on."

"Yes sir," Carter said. She ran toward the DHD and started dialing earth.

When the rest of them reached the Stargate, the Red Shirts started heading toward it, ready to go home. "Ah!" O'Neill shouted. "We stay here until all these people are through."

Zim looked apprehensively at the dead sun above them. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

O'Neill didn't bother responding. Instead he let Bruni and Jackson lead the Mayans through to earth. After about a half-hour, almost everyone was through. It was a good thing, considering how Stargates could not be kept open for longer than 38 minutes.

It took five more to get everyone else through, and O'Neill ordered the rest of his team back to earth. He was the last one to leave. He cast his glance up to the dead sun and sighed. "Why do we always show up just before a planet gets destroyed?"

He stepped through the Stargate and found himself back at SG-C, where Hammond was already coordinating with everyone to find a new home for the Mayans.

In the mess of people crowding the gate room, O'Neill noticed Pervdoz standing around, staring off into space. He recognized the look, having worn it himself when under the sway of the knowledge of the Ancients. "Hey General! I think we need to contact the Asgard!"

Hammond looked up from what he was doing. "Why's that, Colonel?"

"This Red Shirt. He's starting to lose it. We don't need the knowledge of the Ancients in his head anymore, since we got the time device, so we should get Thor on the case."

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" A skinny, baldheaded bespectacled guy came charging out of the booth and into the gate room.

"Who's this guy?" O'Neill asked.

"I'm Richard Woolsey. I'm in charge of the Civilian Oversight Committee."

"Oh. A bureaucrat. Just what we need."

"This man—" Woolsey pointed to Pervdoz. "—is a Red Shirt. I thought the whole purpose of having them around was so they could die in the place of important SG team members."

"Well, that's kind of a cold way of—" Jackson started.

"Do you know how much it costs the taxpayers each time you turn this Stargate on?" Woolsey asked. "To use it to contact the Asgard to save the life of a mere Red Shirt is fiscally irresponsible."

"Fiscally irresponsible?" Jackson asked. "We're talking about a human life, here."

"Barely," O'Neill said.

"And we're in a recession, Dr. Jackson," Woolsey said. "I have the American people to look out for, and I refuse to let something like this happen."

"We'll have to hold a funeral," O'Neill said. "Those cost a lot. How much is that going to gouge the taxpayers?"

"Not nearly as much as turning on the Stargate," Woolsey said.

Zim looked over to Pervdoz. "Does this mean Pervdoz is going to die?"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Zim," Woolsey said.

Fitz looked at Jackson. "You know, no one has really cared that much about Pervdoz. I think that if he was aware, you'd probably be his bestest friend ever. Either that, or he'd alienate you as soon as possible."

Jackson didn't know what to say to that, so he folded his arms and looked as sternly as possible at Woolsey, hoping that he had just the right amount of moral indignation in his eyes. "We can't just let a man die."

Zim looked from Jackson to Woolsey, then back to Jackson again. "This is probably not a good place for a cliffhanger. No one really cares whether or not Pervdoz dies."


	16. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

YOU'RE FIRED

Hammond stepped between Jackson and Woolsey. "You listen up, you pencil-necked geek. You're in my house. You don't make demands. As long as I am in command here at SG-C, I will run it as I see fit."

"Don't be a fool, George," Woolsey said. "My status here is important. If I—"

"Call me General," Hammond said. He turned to the booth. "Sergeant, please dial the Asgard and send our request through to them."

"Yes sir," the sergeant said.

Woolsey simmered. "You can't do that! I'll report you!"

"Report away," Hammond said. "My name is spelled H-A-M-M-O-N-D. That's two M's, son."

"But . . . you can't—"

"Colonel O'Neill, would you please escort this sorry excuse for a man out of my sight?"

O'Neill smiled. "With pleasure, sir."

As soon as they were gone, Jackson turned to Hammond. "Thank you."

"That guy's a dick," Hammond said. "And he was in the wrong."

The Stargate powered up, and the sergeant sent their message to the Asgard. In the meantime Hammond started coordinating the Mayans to their temporary living quarters.

Fitz glanced over at Bruni and gasped. "What the fuck are you wearing?"

Bruni held up his mantle of gloriously colored feathers. "I got this off of Quetzalcoatl. I figured I'd need it if I was going to command my people."

"Hey, where is that guy, anyway?" Fitz asked.

"We left him behind. The Mayans were going to sacrifice him, anyway. Prime directive."

"As long as we got that time thingy," Fitz said.

"Speaking of which," Jacob said, "I'll take that time device, if you don't mind." He held out his hand.

Bruni didn't move. "No. I need it to rule over my people."

"They're not your people," Jacob said. "That was just a ploy to win this device. Now give it to me for safe keeping."

"This is the scepter of my godhood," Bruni said.

"Goddammit! Give it here!" Jacob grabbed the golden stick in Bruni's hand, but Bruni would not relinquish it. They tugged it back and forth until Carter came over.

"If either one of you breaks that thing, I will personally shoot you both," she said.

"In the nuts," Zim said. He just wanted to say "nuts" in front of Carter.

"My nuts are impervious," Bruni said. "I am a god."

Teal'c frowned. "Where have I heard that before?"

Hammond stepped in. "Bruni, give the device to Jacob. That's an order."

"I'm not military," Bruni said. "I don't have to—"

Hammond grabbed the time device out of Bruni's hand and placed it into Jacob's. "Now that that is settled . . ." Hammond walked off to deal with someone else's bullshit.

Jacob examined it. "Now, how does this thing work?"

"Twist the bottom and hit the button that rises up," Bruni said.

"How do you know that?" Jacob's voice was different now. It had a deep echo to it.

"Whoa! That sounds awesome!"

"Never mind that," Selmak said. "How did you know?"

"I've been using it for the past hour," Bruni said. "Every time you tried to take it away from me, I pushed the button and tried to keep it for myself."

"And it only goes back five seconds?"

"More like ten," Bruni said. "But close enough."

"Sergeant," Hammond called out. "Any response from the Asgard?"

"No sir. Nothing."

"Shut down the gate. Dr. Jackson, you and Bruni work on getting these Mayans sorted out."

Jackson and Bruni worked together to get the Mayans out of the gate room and into their quarters. Carter went to work finding a planet suitable to their needs. Everyone else went their own way, and Zim thought now would be the perfect time for a nap.

Robo-Rico went with him. And this time, he was not polite enough to ask if it was okay to spank it.

After fruitlessly trying to sleep, Zim escaped and decided to hunt down Fitz. He had a lot to complain about, and since Fitz always listened in the past, maybe he'd do it now. He found his former roommate sitting back and watching Bruni in action. The Mayans had put a throne together for their new leader, and Bruni sat in repose on it, dressed in Quetzalcoatl's feather suit and drinking Wild Turkey 101. Jackson stood next to him like an assistant, translating everything.

"This is awesome," Fitz said. "I've never seen Bruni so happy."

"Well," Jackson said, "as far as leaders go, he's pretty benevolent. He asks nothing more of his people than whiskey. There's very little abuse of power going on here."

"But you still hate him," Fitz said. "Don't you?"

"Hate's a strong word," Jackson said, "but I do have far better things to do than translate the mad gibberish he spouts all the time."

"Then why don't you just do that stuff instead?" Zim asked.

"This is important work," Jackson said. "If I don't do this, no one will be able to keep the Mayans in check. Bruni's pretty good at pacifying them."

DD walked in. "Hey guys. Did you hear the news? Hammond just got taken out of here at gunpoint and in cuffs."

"Wait, what?" Jackson asked.

"That Woolsey guy? He reported to Vice President Kinsey. The order came down from the top to remove him from SG-C. He's being fired."

"Holy shit," Zim said.

"That's not all. The VP assigned Woolsey to take over for Hammond."

"Woolsey's in charge of SG-C?!" Jackson asked.

"That's what I said," DD said.

Jackson looked at Bruni. "You're on your own. Don't start a riot." And took off running.

Bruni looked after him. "I promise nothing."


	17. Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

HERE'S THE PLAN

"I got it! I figured it out!" McKay went charging into Hammond's office only to see Richard Woolsey sitting behind the desk. "Uh, you're not Hammond."

"I most certainly am not," Woolsey said. "General Hammond has been relieved of his command. I'm in charge. Now, what do you have, and why should I care?"

"That project I've been working on. I have a solution. We have to get everyone together in the briefing room. Like now. There isn't a moment to lose."

McKay rushed out before Woolsey could object. Within ten minutes, a group gathered in the briefing room. McKay stood at the front of the room and looked out at the table, where Woolsey sat at the head, and the android SG-1 sat on one side with Jacob, and Red Shirts Zim, Paisley, DD and Robo-Rico sat on the other. Pervdoz was confined to the infirmary, still recovering from when Thor stopped by to take the knowledge of the Ancients out of his head. He spent most of his time watching the Simpsons and looking at Imgur. The Mayans had been sent away three days ago, and Fitz and Bruni had been sent back to their lives. Not without having their memory erased, though.

"Thank you for joining us today," McKay said. "I've gathered you together because I've finally figured out a way to get us back in time. Back to just before SG-1 died, so we can save them."

"Don't just leave us hanging, Rod," O'Neill said. "What do we need to do?"

"First, let me remind you of what we know," McKay said. "We know, thanks to when SG-1 was sent back in time, that two things can cause a Stargate to turn into a time travel device. First, traveling through a wormhole that brings us too close to the sun. Secondly, traveling through the Stargate at the precise moment of a sunspot."

"It was the course correction that sent us back to 1969," Carter said. "Not the closeness to the sun."

"It was a combination of both, actually," McKay said. "Now shut up so I can get to the good stuff."

Carter opened her mouth to retort, but O'Neill held a hand up. "Just let him get through this. He gets to be insufferable when interrupted."

"Thank you, Colonel," McKay said. He showed no sign that he recognized O'Neill's sardonic remark. "Here is something we also know: no matter how you change the universe, it always expands at the same rate. Remember when you blew up that star?"

"I blew up a star?" Carter asked.

"That's pretty cool," O'Neill said.

"Never mind," McKay said. "I keep forgetting that you're not the good Carter. Anyway, even after blowing up the star, the universe continued working the way it was supposed to. Everything works like clockwork, and nothing can change that."

"So what?" O'Neill asked.

"I'm getting there. We also know that there is a multiverse. Meaning, there are at least two other parallel universes to ours. The one Dr. Jackson visited through the quantum mirror, and the one from which alternate versions of Carter and Kowalski visited this planet."

"You're confusing the shit out of me!" Zim yelled. "What the fuck are you talking about? Time travel and alternate universes?! This is bullshit. How is this going to help us?"

"It is kinda stupid," DD said.

"I follow you," Robo-Rico said.

"I think I see where this is headed," Carter said.

"Good," McKay said. "I'm glad someone has the genius to understand me. The problem with charting a course close to the sun is the course correction Carter built into our jerry-rigged DHD here. We don't know how it works. It was just a fluke, and chances are good we'll never understand why it happened. Which leaves us with sunspots."

"I thought you couldn't predict sunspots," Jackson said.

"You're right. We can't. But remember what I said about how the universe never . . . EVER . . . changes how it runs like clockwork?"

"All we need is a model to show us what's going to happen," Carter said. "We need a parallel universe that has already been there so we can take note of the sunspots."

"Exactly!" McKay said. "Here's something we also know. The parallel universe Dr. Jackson visited is on a time table ahead of us. Which means—"

"It means that if we go there through the quantum mirror, we'll be able to keep an eye out for the sunspots," Carter said.

"That's right. All we have to do is send someone there, get the sunspot information and bring it back to this universe. Since our universe is going to ape what their universe does, then we can accurately predict sunspots here."

O'Neill looked to Carter. "Could this work?"

"It's actually quite brilliant, sir," Carter said. "There's just one problem. How do we judge the accuracy of going back in time?"

"Meaning?" McKay asked.

"How do we know it will get us back to the time we want?"

"How did you figure it out in 1969?" McKay said.

"By plotting a course to P2X-555," Carter said.

"Why that planet?" McKay asked.

Carter and McKay went back and forth with a lot of confusing jargon and scientific terms. Not a single other person in the room knew what they were talking about. Zim stopped paying attention. Even Robo-Rico started playing with the mop he used for his hair. Jackson and O'Neill exchanged glances, rolled their eyes and sat back, waiting for the argument to be over.

Finally Carter and McKay seemed to agree, and they turned back to everyone else. "This is a viable plan," Carter said. "The math is a bit iffy, but I've risked more with less."

"One question," O'Neill said. "After we go back in time and save the real version of us, how do we get back to our time, here and now?"

"It won't matter," McKay said. "This timeline will cease to exist."

"Meaning, we all die?" Jackson asked.

"Not really. We'll go back to our places in the universe. You'll go back to your android planet, and we'll just go on with whatever we were doing when Anubis's ship exploded. We won't even remember any of this."

"Where does this thing come in?" Jacob asked. He held up the Tok'ra time device.

"It's our failsafe," McKay said. "If we get sent back a little too late, we can reverse time a few seconds and save the day before the ship explodes."

Carter turned to Woolsey. "Do we have a go, sir?"

Woolsey shook his head. "Sorry to have wasted your time, but if you'd given me enough time to speak, I would have told you to give up."

"Excuse me?" McKay said.

"SG-1 is dead," Woolsey said. "There's nothing we can do about that. I'm certainly not going to risk taxpayer dollars to go on this wild goose chase. I don't even understand this ridiculous scheme."

"We understand it," Carter said. "That's good enough for me."

"We have to try this," Jacob said. "SG-1 is the most important SG team we have. They've done the most work with the best results. We need them. It will be worth the cost."

"Besides," Jackson said, "if I understand Dr. McKay, this won't cost the taxpayers a single cent. If this timeline resets itself, the taxpayer spends no money. In fact, we'll have a windfall of taxpayer dollars because everything we have done since SG-1 died won't have happened. You will save the taxpayers money."

"This is too outlandish for me," Woolsey said. "My decision is final. You do not have a go. Now, if you'll excuse me." He gathered his papers and folders and exited the room.

"Hammond was right," O'Neill said. "He's a pencil-necked geek."

"It's a good thing that we rarely listen to orders from our superiors," Teal'c said. "It also helps that Sgt. Walter Harriman is a friend of ours."

"Who is Sgt. Harriman?" O'Neill asked.

Teal'c blinked. "The sergeant who always dials the Stargate for us."

"He has a name?"

"Indeed."

"Huh. If that don't beat all."

Zim looked out the door, where he could still see Woolsey's back as he walked away. The SG-C commander then stepped into the men's room. "Never mind all that. I have an idea. Teal'c, I'm going to need your help."

Teal'c grimaced. "This sounds distasteful, Cris Zim of Lisle."

"Just follow me."


	18. Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE!

On the way to the bathroom Zim explained what he needed Teal'c to do. As the Jaffa listened, his grimace deepened. "I thought I was disgusted with you before you started talking, Cris Zim of Lisle. This is far more distasteful than I expected."

"O'Neill said Woolsey's a pencil-necked geek," Zim said. "It's the only way to deal with pencil-necked geeks."

"Very well. I will aid you in this endeavor, but I'm not pleased with this."

"Do you want to save SG-1 or not?"

Teal'c paused outside the door to the bathroom. Slowly, he nodded his head once.

"Good. Let's do this."

They burst into the bathroom just as Woolsey stepped away from a urinal. He glanced up at Teal'c and Zim. "You can't change my mind. My decision is final."

Teal'c grabbed him around the arms, so Woolsey couldn't defend himself, and lifted him off the floor, dragging him toward one of the stalls.

"What are you doing?!" Woolsey shouted. "I demand that you release me!"

Zim lifted the toilet lid for Teal'c and stepped aside so the Jaffa could enter with his burden. With very little effort, Teal'c flipped Woolsey upside down and stuffed his head into the toilet. The commander of SG-C cried out and gurgled as Teal'c kicked the flusher. And again. And again.

In the meantime Zim went to the janitor's closet and grabbed a mop. As soon as Teal'c retreated, leaving Woolsey gasping on the floor, Zim closed the door to the stall and slid the mop handle through all of the latches.

"I do not think this will hold him for very long, Cris ZIm."

"It'll hold him long enough. Besides, he'll be weak. Haven't you ever been swirlied before?"

Teal'c almost gagged. "No. Absolutely not."

"Let's get going."

They rushed back to the briefing room. Zim said, "We have a go."

O'Neill blinked. "You changed Woolsey's mind? How? Did you threaten to kill him?"

Teal'c said, "O'Neill. It is best not to ask."

"We—" Zim started.

"No," Teal'c said. "We will never speak of this again."

"Well, anyway," McKay said. "Not all of us need to go. Carter and I both have to go, since we're the only ones who know what we're doing. We could also use a guard, since I understand that this alternate earth was taken over by the Goa'uld."

Teal'c smiled. "I would like to accompany you. Apophis is still alive in that world, and I would relish the opportunity to rectify this error."

"I'll go," O'Neill said.

"It might not be a good idea," McKay said. "We'll need you to stay behind, just in case we fail. You'll be our last chance. We don't need Dr. Jackson, either. Jacob, since you're the guy with the time device, you should stay behind, too."

"That's all right," Jackson said. "I've seen that world. I was underwhelmed."

"It might be good to have the Red Shirts with us, in case we need any bullets stopped."

"All right, that sounds like a plan," O'Neill said. "Let's get down to the gate room."

"Just thought I'd warn you," Zim said, "Woolsey's going to be super pissed. It might be good to lay low for a while."

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

Everyone got in their field gear and picked up their weapons and rushed down to the gate room. O'Neill, Jackson and Jacob went to the observation booth and approached Sgt. Harriman. "Walt, we've been assigned to go to P3R-233."

"I didn't hear from Woolsey," Harriman said.

"It's okay," O'Neill said. "He's indisposed at the moment."

Harriman smiled. "Understood." He began to dial.

McKay's team went through, and they found themselves in an artifact room of the Ancients. There were several mirrors, but Carter remembered from when she'd been here before which one they needed.

They each took turns touching the mirror until they were all through into the parallel universe. Nothing looked different. "This is it?" Zim asked. "This isn't anything special."

"Are you nuts?" McKay asked. "We're in a parallel universe! How does that not impress you?" He paused, almost out of breath. "You know what? Forget it. Just dial us to earth, will you?"

Zim stood in front of the DHD and scratched his head. "Um, how do I do that?"

"Jesus Christ!" McKay shouted. "There is one and only one address that EVERYONE at SG-C must memorize. Are you telling me you're that stupid?!"

"He's pretty dumb," Robo-Rico said.

DD laughed. "Hella-dumb."

McKay stared at DD. "I didn't think I could hate you guys more. This is surprising."

"I'm good at that kind of thing," DD said.

"I know the address," Paisley said. "I'll dial us out." He shuffled his stick-thin form over to the DHD and started touching symbols. "I wish they had the Prince symbol. That would be cool."

McKay looked at Carter. "This sucks. I can't believe we're surrounded by these morons. Just the two of us."

Carter rolled her eyes. "Let's go, hotshot."

Paisley dialed them out, and when they arrived at the alternate earth and looked around, everyone was surprised. "Jesus. Dr. Jackson wasn't kidding around," McKay said. "This place is trashed."

Cheyenne Mountain had been split open by the blast from the Goa'uld mothership. Nothing but rubble remained. Only the Stargate stood unharmed.

"I just realized something horrible," Carter said.

"It can't be any worse than talking with this group of morons," McKay said. He waved a hand at the Red Shirts.

"The observation booth is gone," Carter said.

McKay's eyes went wide. "You're fucking kidding me."

"What does that mean?" Zim asked.

"The jerry-rigged DHD," Carter said. "It's been destroyed."

"And?"

"You goddammed idiot!" McKay said. "It means we can't dial our way out of here. It means that I'm stuck here with you assholes. Probably forever."

"That sucks," DD said.

McKay stared at him. Blinked. "Yeah. Way to go, Captain of the Understatement."

"I'm just saying," DD said.

"Well, stop saying." McKay turned to Carter. "I can't believe this. This can't be happening."

Zim thought it wasn't so bad. Sure, he was stuck with the Red Shirts and McKay, but on the other hand Carter was here. And she couldn't leave. Maybe now was the time to try to get closer to her. After all, if two people were thrown together into a stressful situation, wouldn't it follow that eventually they'd start banging each other's brains out? He just had to make sure that none of these other scumbags could beat him to the punch.


	19. Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

CHEETOS!

Three months passed. Carter and McKay argued constantly, whether they were monitoring for sunspots or trying to piece together a make-shift DHD. They scrounged around the ruins of nearby towns for parts of the latter, but they'd brought equipment with them for the former. Still, they never had a quiet moment between them.

The thing that pissed Zim off the most, though, were the times that McKay hit on Carter. As loathsome as he seemed, Carter never seemed completely repelled by him. He actually seemed to be making progress. So Zim pretended not to notice Carter, hoping that would endear her to him thanks to the contrast between him and McKay. It wasn't working.

Teal'c hunted in the woods nearby and occasionally brought back something worth eating. The Red Shirts generally milled around and kept an eye out for anybody, but since the Goa'uld had attacked the planet, humanity seemed to be wiped out.

Zim was just coming back from patrol when he saw McKay and Carter yelling. "This whole thing is pointless!" McKay shouted. "Even if we do manage to throw something together, we don't have a power source!"

"First of all, remember that I came up with the jerry-rigged DHD in the first place," Carter said. "If anyone can do it, I can."

"We don't have the resources you had back then!"

"Secondly!" she shouted. "Secondly, when we were stuck in 1969, we used a car battery to power the Stargate."

"This is a different circumstance," McKay said.

"I don't see what's so different. When we found the Stargate in 1969, it had been mothballed for decades."

"The Naquadah was still charged from the 1945 expedition."

Carter blinked. "I don't know where you came up with that ridiculous theory."

Zim laughed. "She said 69."

Carter and McKay whipped their heads around. McKay rolled his eyes. "That's so funny I forgot to laugh."

"I don't think that's been funny since Pee-Wee Herman," Zim said.

"Fuck this," McKay said. "Carter, you do sunspot duty. I have more knowledge about the Stargate. I'll handle the DHD."

"I have more practical knowledge," Carter said.

"Jesus Christ! I can't win here! I'm taking a break." McKay dropped the papers he was holding and stormed out.

Zim approached Carter. "What's that guy's problem?"

"If I could answer that, I'd win a Nobel Peace Prize," Carter said.

Zim wondered if maybe he should rub her shoulders. "You look pretty tired. Wanna take a break, get something to eat?"

"Sure. I'd love that."

They went into the remains of the briefing room, where Zim hoarded his most prized treasure. A month back, he found a Cheetos truck in a ditch by the side of the road. Inside were thousands of bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, and he kept them here. He gave her a bag and got one of his own.

"So . . . do you have a boyfriend back home?" Zim asked.

"I'm told the real Carter has a boyfriend," she said. "Pete Shanahan. He's supposed to be a cop. I've never met him, though."

"It must be pretty lonely, then," Zim said.

"It can be. But I've made my peace with it. It's not like I can have babies or anything. Harlan's not that good at making people."

She sat down next to him, and Zim couldn't believe this was happening. She was talking to him and even smiling at him. He was making progress. So she was a robot. So what? He was sure Harlan wouldn't skimp on the lady parts.

But now that he had her attention, he didn't know what to do. So he started talking about himself. His former romantic adventures (always blaming the girlfriend, never himself). Then he talked about things he liked, and he saw Carter's smile faltering. The more he spoke, the quicker she lost her smile. What the fuck was he doing? How could he mess this up? What could he do to stop himself?

He tried to pull out of this nosedive, but there was nothing he could do. He panicked and talked even more until she wasn't even looking at him anymore. Finally she interrupted him in midsentence: "I should get back to work."

Zim opened his mouth to talk her out of it, but he knew he was defeated. "That's cool." Trying to sound nonchalant.

Carter got up and walked away without another word. Zim scowled, swearing under his breath. He shoved a bunch of Cheetos into his mouth until he almost gagged on red dust. In the other room, he heard Carter running into McKay.

"I never thought I'd be happy to see you."

"Why?" McKay asked.

"I just had the worst conversation of my life," Carter said. "Zim makes you look like Mother Theresa."

"Fuck," Zim whispered. She was probably going to bang McKay now, just to spite Zim. How the hell was he going to avoid her when they were stuck on this alternate earth in such a confined space?

Over the course of the next month Zim did his absolute best to stay away from Carter, and he succeeded most of the time. This meant spending more time with Robo-Rico on patrol. As awful as it seemed, he'd rather spend the time with Paisley. Or even DD.

Carter gave them the good news as the fifth month began. They'd detected a sunspot, and according to her calculations it happened a month after they'd arrived. This confused Zim, and Carter had to explain that when something happens on the sun, we don't see it until the image makes its way to earth. So technically, when viewing the sun they were looking into the past. This only confused Zim more, so he decided to stop listening to the scientists talking.

Now that this was documented, all they needed was for Carter and McKay to fix the DHD. But Zim had absolute faith that they'd succeed. That always seemed to be the case on Wormhole Xtreme. No matter how hopeless the situation seemed, Colonel Danning and his team always seemed to pull an audacious plan out of their collective ass.

Zim, tired of hanging out with Robo-Rico, took up playing tic-tac-toe with Paisley. Surprisingly, Zim won every time. "At least I'm good at something," he muttered.

But Paisley got tired of Zim's posturing, so he tried playing with Teal'c.

"What is a tic-tac-toe?" the Jaffa asked.

Zim explained, and Teal'c lifted an eyebrow. "This is supposed to be fun?"

"No, but it passes the time."

"The Tau'ri are a strange people." And Teal'c walked away while the getting was good.

Zim had more luck putting together a poker club. DD had brought a deck of cards with him, and they gambled with rocks they found around the ruins of the base. It was strictly a Red Shirt affair, especially after Teal'c gave up trying to learn what he called "an inane skill set." McKay stopped by every once in a while, but Carter refrained entirely. In fact, as an android she didn't need sleep, so she kept working and working and working.

Twenty days after they found the sunspot, Carter managed to get the DHD online. After that, she asked Teal'c to go out and find a car battery. He got the one from the Cheetos truck, which was much bigger and had more power in it than a regular car. He then helped her hook it up to the Stargate. Everyone gathered in the remains of the gate room to watch this. Eager to get home, everyone had already packed up and were waiting for the Stargate to power up.

Sure enough it came on, exploded outward and glowed like a swimming pool.

"I told you so," Carter said to McKay.

McKay shrugged. "Business as usual. I guess I should just get used to you showing me up every time."

Paisley scooped up Teal'c's staff weapon and turned it on Carter. His eyes suddenly glowed, and when he spoke his words reverberated deeply, just like when Selmak talked. "Congratulations, Doctor. You have succeeded where I have failed." And he shot her in the guts.

"No!" Teal'c roared as he leapt into action. He was rewarded with a staff blast to the chest.

McKay dove for cover, narrowly escaping a third energy blast. The Goa'uld using Paisley's body then turned the staff weapon on Zim and prepared to fire.


	20. Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

SUDDEN DEATH

Robo-Rico leapt into action. He stomped forward and gave Paisley a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em punch to the back of the skull. Paisley's head came off and somersaulted through the air before bouncing off the floor and rolling through the Stargate. The staff weapon went off, but the sudden violence had thrown off the Goa'uld's aim, and the energy blast struck the wall instead. Paisley's headless body trembled and collapsed in a pile.

"Always wanted to do that," Robo-Rico said.

"Jesus Christ," Zim said. "How did you do that?"

Robo-Rico shrugged. "Crazy robot strength."

McKay jumped out from behind cover and rushed to Carter's side. She groaned, holding the blasted part of her stomach. "Holy shit, Carter. Are you all right?"

"She looks pretty dead," DD said.

"She's an android," McKay said. "She might survive this."

"It didn't work for Teal'c." DD pointed to the dead Jaffa. Sparks still danced in his open chest cavity.

"This might hurt," McKay said. "Or maybe not. I don't know what's in your programming." He lifted her shirt to get a better look at the damage. He lifted it a bit too far, and Zim's eyes widened as he finally caught a glimpse of Carter's breasts. The front of his pants suddenly became too crowded.

"How does it look?" Carter asked.

McKay shook his head. "You're too fried. There's nothing I can do. We have to get you back home. Maybe if I had my lab, I could—"

"It's all right, Rodney," Carter said. "I know I'm dying. What about Teal'c?"

"Toast," DD said.

"Guys?" Robo-Rico said. "I know this is a touching moment and all, but we have company."

Zim reluctantly tore his eyes away from Carter's breasts and looked out to see an army of Jaffa approaching. They all had the very same forehead tattoo as Teal'c, except theirs were black.

McKay glanced up. "Holy shit. Those guys work for Apophis. I think Robo-Rico just killed a System Lord."

"Sweet," Robo-Rico said.

"Zim, help me lift Carter. We need to get out of here."

Eager to touch Carter, Zim helped McKay lift her up and walked her to the Stargate. On the way the back of his hand grazed one of her boobs, and Zim found it a bit harder to walk with the massive boner he now sported. Robo-Rico grabbed Teal'c and put him on his shoulder. He put Paisley on his other, and he followed the others through the Stargate. DD went through, and once on the other side, they powered the gate down.

"They're probably not going to be able to figure out the jerry-rigged DHD," McKay said, "so I doubt they'll follow us. All the same, let's get back home as soon as possible."

Robo-Rico stooped to pick up Paisley's head. They then rushed to the quantum mirror, and once they were back in their own universe, they gated home where O'Neill, Jackson and a crew of doctors and scientists awaited. They took Carter right away, but things didn't look good.

"How's Woolsey?" McKay asked.

"He's gone," Jackson said. "Homeworld Security deemed him an unfit ruler after the swirlie incident. They brought Hammond back, so we're all good."

O'Neill and Jackson then took off for the infirmary, where they waited by Carter's side. McKay, Zim, Robo-Rico and DD went to the briefing room and reported back to Hammond. In the middle of the debriefing O'Neill and Jackson walked in with hangdog faces. "Carter's gone," O'Neill said.

"I can't believe it. Her and Teal'c," Jackson said. "Gone."

"And Paisley," Zim said. No one cared to speak up. He was angry with himself for even bringing it up.

After they were done Zim rushed down to his quarters and jumped into bed. He'd be damned if he was going to be robbed of the chance to take a nap, and it had been a long time since he's slept in a bed. A shower could wait. He closed his eyes and waited for the sandman to take him.

The door opened, and he heard Robo-Rico lumber in. He heard the other bed's springs creak loudly as Robo-Rico sat down on the edge. "You know, I saved your life in the alternate world, right?"

Zim sighed. "Yes."

"'Cause Paisley was going to blow your nuts off if I hadn't punched his head off. Right?"

Zim forced his eyes open. "Where are you going with this?"

"Nowhere. You just forgot to thank me, that's all."

"Thank you." Zim closed his eyes and hoped that would be the end of it.

"Also," Robo-Rico added, "you can never give me shit about beating off. Ever again."

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! But this time, not even Robo-Rico's incessant loud masturbation could stop Zim from passing out into the bliss of a sweet, sweet nap.


	21. Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

GONNA GO BACK IN TIIIIIIIIIME!

According to Carter and McKay's calculations, about a month had to pass before the sunspot happens. In that time Zim spent a lot of his life trying to get a nap but instead being sent on adventures through the Stargate. In one world he found himself stuck in a quantum pocket where he wound up meeting alternate universe versions of himself. (He really couldn't stand the one with the soul patch and the ninja sword. Fuck that guy.) In another he caught an alien disease and almost melted in the infirmary. In yet another he found that his mind had been swapped out with DD's, so he was stuck living in that scumbag's body until McKay found a way to reverse it.

In the meantime Jacob had forsaken the Tok'ra and joined SG-1, hoping that his efforts would one day lead to bringing the original SG-1 back to life. And to take the fourth slot they found a guy from SG-4, Lt. Sheppard. At first he tried talking to Zim, just shooting the shit, but Zim always wondered why this guy was talking to him, so he only answered in terse sentences. After a while, Sheppard gave up.

DD and Pervdoz were permanently assigned to SG-1, not that it mattered much. They didn't contribute a single solitary fucking thing to the group. Somehow through sheer luck they managed to survive several firefights with the Jaffa, and once they rescued Jackson from a Goa'uld named Baal.

Zim became a decent shot after a while, but his specialty was not the P90. The recoil was too much for him. He was satisfied with the zat guns, though. He liked the cool sound they made when he fired them.

But as time for the sunspot drew near Hammond pulled everyone into the briefing room to prepare for this all-important mission. McKay stood at the front of the room, ready to begin.

"The sunspot will occur at 0523 and 35 seconds tomorrow morning," he said. "We will need to be assembled in the gate room with the Stargate dialed out to P2X-345 by that time. On my mark, you must all go through the Stargate. If we're off by a second, this won't work."

"Which is where this thing comes in." Jacob held up the time device that they'd gotten from the Mayans.

"Right," McKay said. "If you wind up on P2X-345 but not in the past, then you must push the button. This will set you back ten seconds, at which point you must tell me which calculation to try next. There are ten calculations. Since I won't be the one pushing the button, I won't know which one to try next. If things work out well, then we'll have just enough time to try again."

"That sounds confusing," Zim said.

"God help me," O'Neill said, "but for once I agree with this idiot. Help me out here, Rodney."

"You don't need to understand it," McKay said. "I get it, and that's what's important here."

"So what happens if we get to where we need to be?" Lt. Sheppard asked. "Because I don't remember if you guys recall how things went down or not. The Jaffa nearly took the Stargate from us. It was a hell of a firefight. We could be walking into a crossfire."

"Crossfire!" Zim shouted. "Crossfiahhhhhhhhh!"

Everyone in the room looked at Zim, and Robo-Rico shook his head. "I don't know this guy."

"Was that a reference to the 'Eighties game?" Sheppard asked.

Zim nodded. "Sorry. Fitz wasn't here, so I had to do it."

"Nah. It's funny in a lightly amusing kind of way. But my question still stands. What do we do in that situation? We can't send a MALP through into the past to check things out."

"That's the risk we run," McKay said. "There's no way around it. Duck and roll and hope for the best."

"Well that's reassuring," O'Neill and Sheppard said at once. They looked at each other, and O'Neill frowned.

"Aren't you going to jinx each other?" Robo-Rico asked.

"Come on, Rico," Sheppard said. "Now you're just talking to hear yourself talk."

"Now you're just talking to hear yourself talk," Robo-Rico said.

Jackson looked to O'Neill. "We should have never left Altair. It wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Here's a neat thing I've been thinking about," McKay said. "The time device. Who's to say it can't be used over and over again? We don't know much about the power source, whether or not it can be drained and all of that. However, in theory if you go back in time ten seconds, the button would technically not have been pressed. Therefore I suspect it might have an unlimited supply of power. If worse comes to worst, you can probably keep hitting the button."

"What are you talking about?" O'Neill asked.

"Never mind," Jacob said. "I understand."

"I'm glad someone does."

"Anyway, the idea is to fight your way through the Jaffa, if there are any, and get to Anubis's mothership, which is located here." McKay pointed to a map on the screen behind him. He hit a button, and the schematics for the ship showed up. "From the biometric signatures I've studied, SG-1 was located in the engine room of the ship, here. From what I've been able to gather, the Naquadria engine overloaded, and that's what caused the explosion. You need to get there in time to stop that from happening. Understood?"

"Piece of cake," O'Neill said.

"Then we'll meet in the gate room at 0500," Hammond said. "Get a good night's sleep. You're going to need it. Dismissed."

Everyone went their separate ways to enjoy what was possibly their final day in this universe. Zim had a dim understanding that this world would end if they were successful tomorrow. It would be no big loss, as far as he was concerned. Still, this was probably his last chance to get a really good nap. Who knew what the world would look like when they changed the past?

He tried to get a pass off the base so he could maybe hit up a bar, try to get laid, but nothing happened. Hammond didn't let anyone go. Sulking, Zim returned to his quarters, where Robo-Rico waited. Spanking it.

"You're a robot," Zim said. "What good does that do for you?"

"It relaxes me," Robo-Rico said. "And shut up. I saved your life, remember?"

"You can't ride on that forever," Zim said.

"Won't have to. This time tomorrow I won't be around. So let me spank it in peace."

Fuck. One more day, that was it. He just had to deal with this one more day.

The next day they gathered in the gate room at five in the morning, decked out in their field uniforms and loaded down with a metric shit-ton of weapons. McKay stood in the booth with Sgt. Harriman and General Hammond. They went over a few last-minute details, and then they dialed out to P2X-345. As soon as the burst of energy poured out of the gate and then pulled itself back in, everyone mounted the steps and approached the wormhole.

"On my mark," McKay said. "One minute."

DD picked his nose and ate what he found. Pervdoz rolled his eyes, annoyed all to hell because he couldn't bring his Simpsons with him. His fingers twitched, missing the chance to flip the channel to FXX.

"Thirty seconds," McKay said.

O'Neill, Jackson and Jacob took their positions at the front of the procession. Zim and Robo-Rico came next. DD and Pervdoz took up the rear with Sheppard.

"T minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, MARK."

Everyone rushed through the Stargate, and as soon as they jumped out the other side, the world was filled with energy blasts from staff weapons. Bullets from P90s whizzed through the air. O'Neill and Jackson dove for cover, but Jacob, who held the time device, took a staff blast to the face. Robo-Rico, who had stood behind him, took three blasts to the chest and one to the balls.

Zim would have laughed if not for the chaos around him. Staff blasts sizzled off the Stargate, and the others took cover and hoped that this wasn't the end.

The time device rolled out of Jacob's dead hand, and before Zim could grab it, it went down the steps and out of his reach.

"We're so screwed," Zim said.

"Word," DD said.

"I hate you."


	22. Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

TWO-FISTED ACTION! AS YOU LIKE IT!

Zim woke up in a Jaffa's arms. He still shuddered, thinking about the mind device that Anubis used on him. It still hurt the insides of his skull. It wasn't being carried that woke him up. No, it was the horrible sound of a battle nearby. It scared the ever-loving shit out of him. A staff blast came out of nowhere and nailed the Jaffa in the head. Zim fell and rolled away, hoping the muscular giant wouldn't collapse on him. More gunfire and staff blasts convinced him to go back to Anubis's mothership. No way could he deal with a battle right now. Maybe he'd find the rest of SG-1. Safety in numbers, even if one of them was Rico. That fucker.

Just as he was about to turn, he saw something odd. Is that . . . could it be . . . ? No, that couldn't be him, could it? Sure, a lot of wacky shit happens to Zim, but this?

Fuck it. He ran toward the mothership.

"Goddammit!" O'Neill yelled. "Zim! You're the closest! Get the time device!"

"They're shooting at me!" Zim yelled.

"That's why you're a Red Shirt! You take risks! Now pick it up! That's an order!"

Robo-Rico, who had been shot by a staff blast, did not fall. Energy crackled throughout his robot body, and he let out an electronic battle roar. He leapt into action, taking full-on staff blasts as he attacked every Jaffa in sight. Anubis's soldiers flew left and right as he left a trail of their bodies behind him.

Zim, now being shot at much less, reached forward and grabbed for the time device. Just before he touched it, a stray energy blast came out of nowhere and hit the time device. It pulsed with yellow light, then started to spark.

"Uh, bad news, O'Neill," Zim said.

"Do not tell me it's broken," O'Neill said. "I will shoot you like the worthless dog you are."

Sheppard blinked, shaking his head. "You had one job, Zim. One job."

Zim picked up the device as soon as it stopped sparking. "Eh, it looks all right. Maybe it'll be fine."

Jackson peeked up from behind the stone steps of the Stargate. "Jack! We're running out of time!"

O'Neill cursed under his breath. "All right, guys. Move out! Stay behind the crazy robot! Sheppard, you have our six. Keep us covered!"

Sheppard laid down some cover fire as O'Neill and Jackson jumped up and followed Robo-Rico on his murderous onslaught. DD ran after them, and Zim was about to join them when he saw that Pervdoz wasn't moving.

Zim grabbed his arm. "We gotta go!"

"Fuck that! They're shooting at us!"

"That's what we're here for," Zim said. "Remember? We're Red Shirts."

"And you're Jack O'Neill all of a sudden? Fuck off!"

That was kind of weird. Why was Zim trying to pep talk this asshole? Zim wasn't even into pep, himself. Maybe he'd been spending too much time going on missions. But they probably needed Pervdoz, so he kept tugging at his arm. "Let's go!"

A staff blast came out of nowhere and blew Pervdoz's arm off just above Zim's hand. Pervdoz screamed and another energy blast took him in the throat. If Zim had left him alone, he probably would have been fine. "I guess we don't need you after all," he said to Pervdoz's corpse. He didn't really care all that much about Pervdoz, so he dropped the severed arm and ran after DD.

Sheppard took up the rear, firing his P90 at anything that moved. Zim wasn't moving quickly enough to suit him. "Keep going!" Sheppard yelled. "We're falling behind!"

"Do I look like the Flash to you?" Zim asked. "I'm out of breath!"

"I don't care if you're Barry Allen! Just don't be Mr. Magoo!"

"Who's Barry Allen?!"

"Never mind! Just go faster!"

They rushed down the path through the woods, and now that Robo-Rico was done killing Jaffa, they could go faster. Sheppard ran backwards, shooting a volley of bullets at the pursuing force behind them.

Finally they burst out of the trees and into the clearing where the Goa'uld mothership awaited them, as well as another army of Jaffa. They were ready, and they strafed the remainder of SG-1 with energy blasts. Robo-Rico, since he was in the lead, took most of the shots, but all it seemed to do was make him stronger. He roared and tore into this new gathering, flinging ruined armor and body parts behind him as he went.

"Jesus," O'Neill said. "I'm glad he's on our side."

"He's kind of a dick, though," DD said.

"He's all right," O'Neill said. He opened his mouth to say more when a staff blast nailed him in the chest. He yelped and fell backward, his electronics sizzling as he hit the ground. "God, don't let my last words be praise for Rico."

Jackson stooped down next to his longtime friend. "It looks bad, Jack."

"Listen. Get these schmucks to the engine room of that beast. Make sure we didn't get our asses kicked for nothing. I'm counting on you."

"I promise," Jackson said. "I'll get them there or die trying."

O'Neill closed his eyes and joined the rest of his team in the great beyond, happy that his last words were not in praise of Rico but a pep talk for Daniel Jackson.

"Guys!" Sheppard yelled. "We're in trouble! We need another Robo-Rico!"

"Never say that again," Zim said.

Sheppard didn't have time to send a witty barb back at him. The Jaffa coming at their backs shot him down in a volley of staff blasts.

"Jackson!" Zim yelled. "We don't have any back cover!"

"I can see that! Thank you!" Jackson looked around at the remains of his team: himself, Zim, DD and Robo-Rico. There was no way they could fend off the Jaffa at their rear. They had no choice but to go to the front. "DD! Lay down some cover fire for us! Take those Jaffa out! Zim, you're with me! Follow Robo-Rico!"

Following Robo-Rico was no problem. He absolutely decimated the Jaffa guarding the outside of the mothership. As soon as they were all dead he punched the side of the ship and tore a hole in its bulkhead. When his hands didn't move fast enough to tear the metal out, he started chewing his way in. Before long, they had a makeshift doorway.

He wasn't fast enough, though. The Jaffa finally caught up and overwhelmed DD. They shot him so many times that all that remained was a portion of a tattoo and an earlobe with an earring in it.

Zim didn't feel too bad for him. He thought the world might be a better place without DD. At least he'd never have to hear about that goddam band of his anymore.

"Robo-Rico!" Jackson yelled. "Get behind us! Make sure the Jaffa don't get in!"

"I'm on it." Robo-Rico blocked Jackson and Zim from several staff blasts, then tore into the approaching army.

"This way," Jackson said. He grabbed Zim by the elbow and rushed forward, a zat gun pointed ahead, just in case. He thought that the Jaffa would be more concerned with the robo-rage killing machine, but why not be safe?

Finally, as they approached the engine room, up ahead they heard voices. Familiar voices. SG-1!

"You don't get it, sir," Carter said. "This set-up is so delicate, I'm surprised it didn't blow already."

"All right," O'Neill said. "Let's get going. Fiddling around isn't worth the risk."

Then Rico spoke up: "Ooo! Shiny!"

Carter: "No! Don't—"

The hallway ahead lit up with an incredibly intense light. Zim squinted, knowing what was coming next. This was it. This was what he'd come to prevent.

And as per usual, he was a day late and a dollar short.

"The button!" Jackson yelled. "Push the-!"

Zim didn't think this would work, but he twisted the bottom of the time device and hit the button just as the energy wave flashed over him.


	23. Chapter 22

CHAPTER 23

GROUNDHOG DAY IN TEN SECONDS

Light filled Zim's world, and when it cleared, he was several feet behind where he'd been. Jackson ran ahead of him, zat gun extended. Zim, who had been standing still, felt like he had just been running and nearly fell over from the disorientation.

"What's wrong?" Jackson asked. "We have to hurry."

"I . . . uh . . ." This confused Zim until he heard from somewhere ahead of him: "Ooo! Shiny!"

"No! Don't-!"

The explosion came again, and Zim quickly figured out what had happened. He went to twist the bottom of the time device again, but when he did, the button didn't pop out. "What the fuck?"

The energy wave came again, and so did the blinding light. The time device sparked, and Zim found himself running forward again. He stumbled and nearly fell over.

"What's wrong?" Jackson asked. "We have to hurry."

"Shit!" Zim yelled. "I don't know!"

"Ooo! Shiny!"

"No! Don't-!"

Boom. Energy blast. Sparks. Zim running again. "Fuck. I'm in a time loop. Like in Groundhog Day." Except, unlike the Bill Murray movie, Zim didn't have all day; he had a mere ten seconds.

"What's wrong? We have to hurry."

Zim sighed and waited for the explosion and for time to rewind itself again. This time he had to be ready. If he picked up the pace a bit, maybe he'd be able to save SG-1, and this time loop would end.

"Ooo! Shiny!"

"No! Don't-!"

Zim sighed once again as the energy blast overcame him, but this time, when he found himself running, he pushed as hard as he could, easily passing up Jackson. Zim burst into the engine room just in time to see Rico reaching for one of the crystals in the naquadria control panel.

"Ooo! Shiny!"

"No!" Carter shouted. "Don't-!"

Too late. Rico jolted the control panel, which in turn upset the naquadria engine. The explosion was instantaneous, and Zim watched as Rico and the past version of himself were torn to pieces.

And then he was back in the hallway with Jackson running in front of him. This time, Zim pushed himself even harder. When he arrived at the engine room this time, Rico was opening his mouth to say something. "Stop it, you asshole!" Zim shouted. "Don't touch that!"

Rico paused, hand hovering above the crystals. "What? I wasn't gonna touch anything."

"Whoa," said past Zim. "That was me!"

Finally! Zim had saved the day! This was going to have a happy ending after all!

And then Zim found himself back in the hallway, running. He paused. "No!"

Jackson turned. "What's wrong? We have to—"

"No matter what I do, I'm fucked! I'm stuck in this time loop! This is bullshit!"

"Ooo! Shiny!"

"No! Don't-!"

Boom. And back to running in the hall.

Shit. Why bother? If he was stuck in this time loop forever, what was the point of trying to save SG-1? He sighed and slumped to the ground.

"Get up!" Jackson said. "We have to hurry!"

"No, we don't," Zim said.

Boom.

Zim running again. He didn't even bother thinking about this one. He just fell to the floor and closed his eyes, hoping he could at least catch a quick nap. He heard Jackson yelling something at him, but he didn't care.

Boom.

Zim, running again. "Fuck! I can't even get any sleep! This is going to drive me nuts!"

Jackson stopped and turned. "What's-?"

"Oh, shut up!" Zim yelled.

Boom.

Zim went through several more cycles, each one grinding on his nerves more and more as he went. How many times had he done this? A hundred? Was it twenty-four hours' worth of ten seconds yet? And there was no way he could get a nap in ten seconds. There was nothing he could do. Rage overcame him, and the next time he found himself running, he pushed himself even harder than before.

This time, he didn't mince words. He grabbed Jackson's zat and blasted Rico. "Ha! I've always wanted to do that!"

Jackson gasped. "What are you doing?!"

Zim shot Rico two more times, and Rico's body disappeared. "That's for beating off around me all the time!"

Time rewound yet again, and Zim spent several cycles killing Rico over and over again, each time in a different way. His favorite was beating Rico to death with his bare hands. Jackson tried to stop him, but there was no holding Zim back when he was in the throes of his Zim-rage.

But after a while, even killing Rico lost its appeal. Once again he gave up and just waited in the hallway for time to rewind. Again. And again. And again.

But even that grew old after a while. He had to find some way out of this if he was ever going to sleep and play Final Fantasy ever again. The problem was, he just wasn't smart enough for this. Why couldn't McKay be here?

Then he realized that Jackson was here, and he was pretty smart, right? But Jackson didn't have memory of all the times they'd been through the cycle. But what if he grabbed Jackson's arm? Would Jackson come with him back in time?

Only one way to find out. When the next cycle came, Zim grabbed Jackson's arm. "What are you doing?"

"Wait a second."

"Do you have to keep holding my arm? This feels kind of weird."

"Wait."

"Ooo! Shiny!"

Zim really hated the sound of Rico's voice.

"No! Don't-!"

He was even tired of Carter's voice.

Boom. This time, when Zim found himself ten seconds in the past, Jackson looked just as disoriented. Zim no longer held his arm, but it looked like Jackson remembered what had happened.

"We're stuck in a time loop," Jackson said.

"I've been through it thousands of times," Zim said. "It's driving me crazy. I need to—"

Boom.

They were back to where they were before, except this time Jackson didn't remember about the time loop. With a sigh, Zim realized that he had to be touching Jackson to make sure he came back with him. Over the course of the next few cycles, Zim explained what was going on, and Jackson's brow furrowed.

"This is a bit out of my jurisdiction," Jackson said. "I'm more of an archaeologist than a quantum physicist. You really need Carter for this."

The next time Zim tried to get to the engine room, stop Rico and grab Carter so she could join the loop, but no matter how quickly he ran, it never worked out. After a few failures he grabbed Jackson again, who had forgotten all about their conversation, so he had to fill him in again. Yet again, Jackson had no valuable input.

However, over the course of the next few cycles, he gave it some careful consideration. "I have a plan. It's not much of a plan, but I think it's something Carter would come up with."

"I'll try anything," Zim said.

"A staff blast caused the device to malfunction. What if we hit it with a zat?"

"I don't know. But let's do it."

"Okay. When the next cycle starts, throw the device to me. I'll shoot it with the zat while you save SG-1. But if this works, you really, really can't be late. Or we'll be dead."

"Yeah, I got that part."

"Ooo! Shiny!"

"No! Don't-!"

"Get ready," Jackson said.

Zim flashed back ten seconds and found himself running again. "Now!" Jackson yelled. As soon as Zim handed off the time device, he ran as hard as he could toward the engine room. Behind him, he heard the zat go off, and Jackson dropped (since he was holding the time device when he shot it).

Zim burst into the engine room.

"Ooo! Shiny!"

"DON'T YOU FUCKING MOVE, RICO!"

Rico paused, hand hovering above the crystals. "What? I wasn't going to touch anything."

"Whoa," past Zim said. "That was me!"

"What's going on here?" O'Neill said. "Who the hell are you?"

Zim closed his eyes, hoping that he wouldn't find himself back in the hallway again.

"Hey, I asked you a question."

Zim opened his eyes, and he was still in the engine room. "Holy shit! It worked!" Then he remembered what McKay had said would happen if he succeeded. "Why am I still here?"

"Never mind," O'Neill said. "We'll get this all sorted out later. Let's get the hell out of here while the getting's good."

Rico looked at the crystals. "They really look pretty." He reached down to grab one.

O'Neill slapped at his hand. "Ah! Don't touch anything. Let's move out."

As they left the engine room, Jackson stopped in the hallway when he saw himself clutching a zat gun and a weird golden rod. "Is that me? I have long hair."

"You look stupid with long hair," Rico said.

"Gee. Thanks."

"We should take him with us," Zim said. "Without his help, I would have never been able to save your asses."

"Save our asses?" O'Neill asked. "What the hell are you talking about? Never mind. We'll figure it out back at SG-C."

"Perhaps he is a Goa'uld spy," Teal'c said.

"I'm from the future," Zim said. "And yes, I saved your lives. But we gotta get out of here."

Jackson and Teal'c picked up Robo-Jackson, and the group of them rushed down the hallway back toward the exit. Once outside, they saw Robo-Rico still battling Jaffa. His circuits sizzled as he tore the Jaffa to pieces.

"What the hell is this, now?" O'Neill said.

"That's Robo-Rico," Zim said. "Future version."

Rico looked at Robo-Rico. "I don't see the resemblance."

"Look out!" past Zim yelled. "Future me! Look out!"

"What?" Zim asked. He turned just as a Jaffa snuck up on him. The staff weapon was aimed at him. He had just enough time to hope that this was one of those to be continued moments (because if it was, then he knew he'd be saved after the cliffhanger) before the staff blast took him high on the chest. He fell to the ground, his chest smoking, and everything went black.


	24. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

A TALE OF TWO ZIMS

Two weeks later Zim opened his eyes for the first time to find himself in the infirmary surrounded by tubes and beeping machines. Needles stuck into just about every open spot on his body. "What the fuck?" Pain shot through his chest.

As soon as the doctors saw he was awake, they sent for Hammond, who strolled into the infirmary with SG-1 behind him. "How are you, son?"

"This sucks," Zim said. "I hurt like hell. What happened?"

"You were shot in the chest with a staff blast," O'Neill said. "We dragged you out of there. When we got back, the android Daniel Jackson and that Robo-Rico abomination told us everything."

"There are a few gaps in their report, though," Carter said. "We'd like you to fill those for us."

Zim told them everything, from when SG-1 originally got killed to when Zim saved their lives. "I thought we were supposed to disappear when we saved you guys. That's what McKay said."

"McKay has a habit of getting ahead of himself," Carter said. "He didn't take into account that you would have created a paradox by saving us. In doing so, you would have never created the future you came from, so you couldn't have gone back to save us, so we would have had to die, anyway."

"What?" Zim asked. "I don't understand what you're saying."

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "You and me both."

"The universe doesn't like paradoxes," Carter said. "In order to allow for them, it creates another universe. A parallel universe. Which explains why you're still here."

Zim blinked. Even such minimal movement hurt. "Wait a minute. Does that mean there are two of me here?"

"Yes," Daniel Jackson said. "And I guess there are two of me now."

"And two of me," a voice next to Zim said. He turned to see that Rico was in the infirmary, too. From the bandages on his face, it looked like he'd been hit with a staff blast, too. "Best part? One of me is a robot. Try to top that, Zim."

O'Neill rubbed his eyes. "It's hard enough coping with just one Zim."

"Jack, I think you owe Zim an apology," Jackson said.

"For what?"

"For always riding him, calling him stupid, marginalizing him. All of that. Despite this, he somehow still saved our lives."

O'Neill looked Jackson in the eyes. "I will never apologize to that sorry excuse for a man."

Jackson looked back, arms crossed. Waiting.

"Fine. Zim, I apologize. You did a good job." O'Neill walked away without saying another word.

"You should get some rest," Hammond said. "We'll be back to check on you later."

Despite having just slept for two weeks, Zim felt tired. He wanted another nap. So he closed his eyes and drifted closer to sleep. Just as he was on the brink, he heard a wet slapping sound next to him.

He turned and saw Rico, a hand moving rapidly under his blanket.

"Goddammit. This time I saved your life. Stop spanking it!"

"I can't help it. I'm bored."

Zim settled in and got used to the sound over the course of the next two weeks. There was nothing else he could do.

In that time he learned they had adopted Robo-Rico permanently as the fifth member of SG-1. He was so effective in battle that they used him against the Super Soldiers Anubis had cooked up. Android Daniel Jackson was mothballed. Every once in a while they filled him with new memories from Daniel Jackson. In case the actual Jackson died (again), they would have a ready replacement.

A lot of buzz went around SG-C, something about the city of the Ancients and a battle in Antarctica. Once, Hammond came by and explained about how they'd recently discovered a gate address for Atlantis. "Do you want to join the team going there?"

"It sounds like a one-way trip," Zim said. "No thanks. I'd rather live in a place where I can get regular naps and play Final Fantasy and hit on waitresses in bars."

"Fair enough," Hammond said.

Finally, after weeks of physical therapy and healing, Zim was ready to leave the infirmary. He would always have a horrible scar on his chest, but he figured that he'd just bang chicks while wearing a shirt.

Shortly after this, Hammond called a meeting of the Red Shirts in the briefing room. They all showed up, including past Zim (could he really be called past Zim?) and DD and Paisley and the rest.

"After giving careful consideration to the mission reports," Hammond said, "we have decided to cancel the Red Shirt program. As it turns out, you guys don't really change much of what happens off-world. The main team members still get injured or killed despite your presence, and you are costing the government too much money. You will be disbanded today."

There were a lot of groans, but the two Zims remained silent. Both of them were kind of grateful for this. Adventures were kind of fun, but they were too dangerous, and they took him away from the important things in life, like taking naps.

"We're still getting paid, right?" DD asked.

"For the time you've spent here, yes," Hammond said. "Your minds will be wiped, and you'll be left in a nearby town."

"That sucks," DD said. "I liked all of this."

"You would," the two Zims said in unison.

"I'm just saying."

On his last day at SG-C, as Zim was packing up, SG-1 (minus O'Neill) came to visit him. "I just wanted to say thank you," Carter said. "It's too bad about the Red Shirts being disbanded. I think you did a lot of good, Zim."

She was complimenting him? Why? Then he remembered that he'd hit on Robo-Carter. This one had no idea what had happened. In fact, Zim thought back to when he'd seen (and FELT) her boobs, and he smiled. "Think nothing of it."

"It was nice knowing you," Jackson said. He offered his hand.

Zim shook it if only to get him out of the way so he could talk to Carter some more. Teal'c stepped between them. "I thank you, as well, Cris Zim of Lisle." He nodded his head forward.

And then Carter surprised the hell out of Zim by leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. "Thank you, Zim."

He was about to push the matter when Hammond came in. "It's time for your memory wipe."

No! Dammit! He'd just been kissed by Carter, and he was never going to remember it! They were going to take this moment from him! Those fuckers! Those fucking fuckers!

The next thing Zim knew, he was in a motel room in some rundown town in Colorado. In the next bed, inexplicably, was Rico. Spanking it.

"Dude! That's gross! Stop it!"

"I can't help it. I have needs, Zim."

"What are you doing here anyway? What am I doing here? The last thing I remember, I was roaming through the woods, looking for food and stuff."

"That's nothing. The last thing I remember, I was watching TV in my living room. I have no idea how I got here. Maybe we were abducted by aliens."

The idea horrified Zim. He didn't want to think about what they might have done to him with probes. He didn't want to think of anyone doing stuff with his butt.

"So, what should we do?" Rico asked.

"We? There's no we in this. I'm getting the hell out of here."

"We could wander from town to town and solve crimes as we go," Rico said. "Or we could wander from town to town, murdering hobos. One or the other."

"I'm going back to Lisle," Zim said. "Maybe Fitz will want to room with me again."

"I doubt it," Rico said. "We'd make a good team of serial killers, though."

"Fuck you," Zim said. "I'm gone."

Zim stepped out of the motel into the chilly air and wondered how the hell he was going to get back to Lisle. Maybe he could call Fitz. Maybe Fitz would come and pick him up.

Probably not, though.

He hit the road with his thumb out, the only way he could think of traveling. He put his other hand into his pants pockets to warm it. There was something in there. He pulled it out and saw that he had a wad of cash. Counting it out, he realized that he had twenty-five thousand dollars.

A car pulled up next to him. "Need a lift?"

He looked through the open window and saw a car full of the hottest chicks he'd ever seen in his entire life. "Uh, yeah."

The hottie behind the wheel leaned over, showing off her generous cleavage. "Where you headed, hon?"

"Lisle. It's in Illinois. Close to Chicago."

"What a coincidence! We're headed to Chicago! Maybe you can show us around. Get in."

Zim couldn't believe his luck: a pocket full of cash and a car full of hot chicks. If only Fitz could see him now. He got into the back seat, in the middle so there was a woman on each side of him, their hips and thighs touching, and smiled. "My name's Cris. Nice to meet you all."

"Hi, Cris!" they all said in unison, rattling off their names. Not that it mattered. All he thought about was that she'd called him Cris and not Zim. He knew, deep down in his heart, that he was going to fuck this up. But for now he was the happiest he'd ever been in his entire life.

THE END


End file.
